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Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
Dairy Queen says it’s milk or water for kids –but you can still get ice cream. (AP)
It’s getting harder to buy a kid a soda these days.
Dairy Queen is the latest restaurant chain to remove soft drinks from its kids’ menus, a move that follows other fast-food giants, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s. Subway, Panera Bread and Chipotle already don’t offer soft drinks to kids.
The ice-cream chain will remove soft drinks, including the neon colored Arctic Rush frozen beverage, and replace them with healthier options such as bottled water and milk. There is also the choice of one of DQ’s signature treats, a kids cone or Dilly Bar.
The move was announced by the Center for Science in the Public Interest–a consumer group advocating for healthier food options.
“Dairy Queen deserves credit for being responsive to the concerns of parents, who increasingly want to be able to order off the kids’ menu without having to say ‘no’ to soda,” said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo Wootan.
Dairy Queen’s Franchise Advisory Council approved the decision at its quarterly meeting at the end of April. Dairy Queen is a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company that is also the largest stakeholder in Coca-Cola Co.
The changes will be seen across more than 4,300 franchise locations in the U.S. by Sept. 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
Back in the day—say 2011–tax fraud was pretty straightforward. Taxpayers deliberately understated income or overstated deductions to cheat the system for their own benefit.
Not anymore. Now, a growing share of such fraud is about crooks using the identities of innocent taxpayers to steal money. If you have a home phone or an email account, these scams are hard to miss. We are inundated with phishing, spoofing, and all variety of cyberscams.
And this trend is especially worrisome now. Identity theft and other cybercrimes are blossoming just as the IRS is trying to make itself more accessible online—a confluence of events that could prove dangerous for taxpayers and catastrophic for the already-troubled agency.
The trend is clear. Each year, the IRS publishes a list of its “Dirty Dozen” tax scams. In 2011, just one involved some form of identity theft. This year no less than one-third were phone-based or online scams. Today, about one-quarter of all IRS criminal investigations are focused on identity theft.
In mid-March, at the height of the recent filing season, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that it was getting as many as 12,000 complaints a week about a phone scam in which callers who claimed to be representing the IRS demanded that taxpayers purchase prepaid debit cards to pay purported tax bills. The scamsters would then get the card numbers from the victims and clean out their accounts.
But those phone-based gimmicks may be trivial compared to a new con: stolen identity refund fraud.
The game is simple: Crooks steal Social Security numbers, file returns that claim refunds, and have the refunds electronically deposited into fake bank accounts or delivered to mail drops. Not only do they steal money from the government, but they create an enormous headache for legitimate taxpayers whose IDs they have stolen.
The IRS has been warning about these scams for years, but has now set up a new team to investigate cybercrimes. The Justice Department’s Tax Division has been focusing on these cases since 2012, and has begun about 1,000 investigations and brought 725 prosecutions.
Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
Even though prices have climbed lately, gasoline will likely be the cheapest in at least six years this summer, experts predict.
With prices moderate this summer and stay about a buck cheaper a gallon than last year, drivers will be packing up their cars for trips that they may have been putting off.
“This is cheapest driving season since the summer of 2009,” says Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service. And, he notes, 2009 was a recessionary year fewer consumers were in a mood or could afford to travel.
The country’s national average gas price leaped 20 cents in a month to $2.69 a gallon this week for regular due to higher crude oil prices and West Coast refinery outages, the Energy Department reports. For 2015, the department now predicts gas will average $2.43 a gallon, down 93 cents from last year. Next year, it predicts, won’t be so bad either: an average $2.69 a gallon.
The average household will spend $675 less for gas this year than last year, the department said this week. As a result, look for more travel.
AAA predicts the Memorial Day weekend alone will see a 5.3% gain in car travel compared to the same three days last year. Gas prices likely won’t change much in the next couple of weeks until the holiday, it says.
The wild card when it comes to gas prices will continue to be Caifornia, which operates almost as a separate gasoline market from the rest of the country when it come to volatility.
After summer,look for bigger price drops. Barring hurricanes, which can temporarily drive prices through the roof if Gulf Coast refineries shut down, many stations around the country will be back to $2-a-gallon gas, Kloza says.
Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
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Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
NEW YORK Manufacturing activity growth in New York State accelerated in May after weakening for three consecutive months, as the pace of new orders improved from a multi-year low, a New York Federal Reserve survey showed on Friday.
The New York Fed’s Empire State general business conditions index rose to 3.09 in May from -1.19 in April, which had been the first negative read for the index since December.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected the index to rise to 5.0 this month. A reading above zero indicates expansion.
The new orders index returned to positive territory to 3.85, rebounding from -6.0 in April, which was the weakest reading since January 2013.
The survey of manufacturing plants in the state is one of the earliest monthly guideposts to U.S. factory conditions.
Other gauges of New York’s factory sector, however, fell on the month.
Prices paid fell to 9.38, the lowest level since July 2012, from 19.15.
Employment gauges were mixed. The index for the number of employees fell for a second month to 5.21 from 9.57, but the gauge on average employee workweek moved to -2.08 from -4.26 in April
The survey’s index on future business conditions fell to 29.81 from 37.06.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
WASHINGTON May 15 U.S. industrial production
fell for a fifth straight month in April, weighed down by
declines in mining and utilities output, pointing to a lack of
momentum in the economy at the start of the second quarter.
Industrial output slipped 0.3 percent after a revised 0.3
percent drop in March, the Federal Reserve said on Friday.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast industrial
production edging up 0.1 percent last month after a previously
reported 0.6 percent fall in March, which was the biggest drop
since August 2012.
The dour report added to weak retail sales data in
suggesting that the economy was struggling to regain momentum
after growth slowed abruptly in the first quarter.
Mining production fell 0.8 percent as oil and gas well
drilling plunged 14.5 percent. It was the fourth straight
monthly decline in mining output. Utilities production tumbled
1.3 percent, likely as warmer weather reduced demand for
heating.
Manufacturing output was unchanged after an upwardly revised
0.3 percent gain in March.
Industrial capacity use fell to 78.2 percent, the lowest
since January of last year, from 78.6 percent in March.
Officials at the Fed tend to look at capacity use as a
signal of how much “slack” remains in the economy and how much
room there is for growth to accelerate before it becomes
inflationary.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)
Article source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/mit-engineers-have-high-hopes-for-cheetah-robot/article_5082c57f-a4a3-5a78-a61a-307d68834d88.html
