THE UNIVERSITY OF DARY KANSAN
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008
NEWS
BUSINESS
9A
Yahoo considers two media mergers
BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. hopes media conglomerate News Corp. can rescue it from a Microsoft Corp. takeover — or at least prove the slumping Internet pioneer is worth more money than
Rupert Murdoch, who controls global media conglomerate News Corp., spoke at a news conference in New York on Oct. 20, 2006. Yahoo Inc. hopes News Corp. can rescue it from a Microsoft Corp. takeover on Wednesday, or at least prove the slumping Internet pioneer is worth more money than its unsolicited suiors want to pay.
its unsolicited suitor wants to pay.
A News Corp. partnership could provide Yahoo with the escape hatch that the Sunnyval based company has been seeking since Microsoft pounced with its
takeover bid two weeks ago.
KEN MARLIN New York investment banker
"Buying Yahoo makes tremendous sense for Microsoft, more sense than any other company in the world."
If nothing else, the possibility of Yahoo joining forces with one of the world's largest media empires could prompt Microsoft to sweeten its bid, which was originally valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.
The details of the proposed News Corp. alliance were still being worked out Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person
Yahoo is thought to want at least $40 per share, or about $56 billion.
year, News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.
didn't want to be identified because the talks are considered confidential.
A Yahoo spokesman said the
News Corp. and a private equity firm reportedly would buy significant stakes in Yahoo as part of a complex deal designed to push the Sunnyvale-based company's market value toward $50 billion
"Buying Yahoo makes tremendous sense for Microsoft, more sense than any other company in the world," said Ken Marlin, a New York investment banker specializing in media and technology deals.
"What's unclear now is whether Yahoo is just trying to get a higher offer or if the company really doesn't want to sell to Microsoft."
Most analysts believe Microsoft will do whatever is necessary to buy Yahoo because the world's largest software maker views the acquisition as the best way to counter- Google Inc.'s dominance of the online search and ad markets — a battleground that is rapidly reshaping the technology and media industries.
pany's next move.
News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett declined to comment on the Yahoo talks.
company continues to "carefully and thoroughly" evaluate alternatives that will enrich its long-term shareholders. Yahoo's board reportedly is to meet again Thursday or Friday to consider the com-
Both The Wall Street Journal and a prominent blog, TechCrunch, reported that News Corp. is interested in folding its popular online social network, MySpace.com, and other Internet assets into Yahoo — an idea that first came up last
PETER FALVEY Technology investment banker
Yahoo shares climbed 31 cents to $29.88 Wednesday while Microsoft shares gained 62 cents to $28.96
News Corp.
shares slipped
10 cents to finish
at $19.93.
Based on Microsoft's current market value, its cash-and-stock bid for Yahoo now stands at $29.50 per share, or about $41 billion.
Yahoo reiect-
ed Microsoft's offer Monday, saying it "substantially undervalues" assets that include one of the Internet's biggest audiences and best-known brands.
Microsoft has held firm so far, calling its original bid "full and fair" while threatening to launch a hostile takeover attempt.
"What's unclear now is whether Yahoo is just trying to get a higher offer or if the company really doesn't want to sell to Microsoft," said Peter Falvey, a technology investment banker with Revolution Partners.
When asked whether he might renew the previous discussions
Although News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch unequivocally said during a conference call last week that his New York-based company isn't interested in an outright acquisition of Yahoo, he didn't rule out the possibility of a deal involving MySpace.
with yahoo about a MySpace alliance, Murdoch replied: "I think that day has passed, but you never know"
A NewsCorp. stake in Yahoo might hinge on whether the two sides can agree on how much MySpace is worth.
News Corp. which also owns
"I think that day has passed, but you never know."
Despite its popularity, MySpace hasn't established itself as an effec-
the Fox television and movie studios in addition to its newspaper and Internet holdings, bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005. But the social network's value has soared as its audience has swelled above 100 million users, creating a potential advertising gold mine.
last year of a 1.6 percent stake for $240 million.
Ironically, Murdoch and his lieutenants can deal to a recent Microsoft deal to make a case that MySpace is worth more than $15 billion.
Facebook Inc., which owns the Internet's second largest social network behind MySpace, now arguably has a $15 billion market value, based on Microsoft's purchase late
RUPERT MURDOCH News Corp. chairman
vehicle, Google last month cited lackluster returns from its ad partnerships with MySpace and other social networks as one
pointments during the fourth quarter
Besides talking with News Corp., Yahoo also has reportedly explored an advertising partnership with Google, its biggest rival. Although Google probably could help elevate Yahoo's drooping profits, the alliance would likely face antitrust hurdles because the companies operate the Web's two biggest ad networks and eliminating one would reduce competition.
Reports of a possible merger with Time Warner Inc's AOL appear to be more rumor than fact, said the person familiar with News Corp. negotiations.
Katrina trailers deemed unsafe
HEALTH
BY MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — U.S. health officials are urging that Gulf Coast hurricane victims be moved out of their government-issued trailers as quickly as possible after tests found toxic levels of formaldehyde fumes.
Fumes from 519 trailer and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average
about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could contract respiratory problems.
In New Orleans, Jim Herring, 63, who recently moved back into his partially renovated house in the badly flooded Lakeview neighborhood, said he wasn't surprised about the finding.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency — which supplied the trailers — should move people out quickly, with priority given to families with children, elderly people or anyone with asthma or other chronic conditions, said Mike McGeehin, director of a CDC division that focuses on environmental hazards.
"We do not want people exposed to this for very much longer," McGeehin said.
"The workmanship is pathetic," said Herring, a retiree who worked for 25 years in a chemical plant.
Herring and his wife, Susan, decided not to stay in their trailer, which they received in April 2007. Both Herrings are smokers, but Jim Herring said he did not have a cough until they moved into it.
"Let's face it, these things were not meant to be lived in for a year," Susan Herring said.
FEMA spokesmen said more than 35,000 of the trailers and mobile homes are still occupied in Louisiana and Mississippi more than two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita laid waste to much of the two states' coastlines.
With housing still in short supply — 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded and the pace of rebuilding has been slow — many were unsure of their next move.
"I got nowhere else to go," said
75-year-old Ernest Penns, whose FEMA trailer is his only shelter.
FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said the agency would be releasing its response to the CDC's findings during a news conference in Louisiana later Thursday. Meanwhile, he said the agency would proceed with its plan to distribute mobile homes to victims of last week's tornadoes in Arkansas and Tennessee.
"There will be processes put in place to ensure safety," McIntyre said.
While there are no federal safety standard for formaldehyde fumes in homes, the levels found in the trailers are high enough to cause burning eyes and breathing problems for people who have asthma or sensitivity to air pollutants, said McGeehin.
CDC officials said the study did not prove people became sick from the fumes, but merely took a snapshot reading of fume levels. Only formaldehyde was tested, they added.
FEMA provided about 120,000 travel trailers to victims of the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In 2006, some occupants began reporting headaches and nosebleeds.
The complaints were linked to formaldehyde, a colorless gas with a pungent smell used in the production of plywood and resins.
Commonly used in manufactured homes, formaldehyde can cause respiratory problems and has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Last May, FEMA officials dismissed findings by environmentalists that the trailers posed serious health risks. They said the trailers conformed to industry standards.
By August, about 1,000 families in Louisiana asked FEMA to move them to other quarters. In November, lawyers for a group of hurricane victims asked a federal judge to order FEMA to test for hazardous fumes.
The CDC, working with FEMA, hired a contractor. The firm — Bureau Veritas North America — tested air samples from 358 travel trailers, 82 park model trailers and 79 mobile homes.
HEALTH
CDC reveals statistics about choking game
BY MIKE STOBBE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — At least 82 youths have died from the so-called "choking game," according to the first government count of fatalities from the tragic fad.
In the game, children use dog leashes or bungee cords wrapped around their necks or other means to temporarily cut blood flow to their head. The goal is a dreamlike, floating-in-space feeling when blood rushes back into the brain.
As many as 20 percent of teens and preteens play the game, sometimes in groups, according to estimates based on a few local studies. But nearly all the deaths were youths who played alone, according to the count compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC started the research after receiving a letter last year from a Tacoma, Wash., physician who said her 13-year-old son died from playing the game in 2005.
"At the time I had never heard of this," said Patricia Russell, whose son was found hanging in his closet, but later learned he had talked to a friend about it.
"One thing that really needs to happen — and is starting to happen now — is to get more information about how common this is," she said.
The CDC counted cases from news reports and advocacy organizations in the years 1995 through 2007, totaling 82 fatalities of children ages 6 to 19. They did not include deaths in which it was unclear if the death was from the choking game or if it was a suicide. They also did not include deaths that involved autoerotic asphyxiation, which is self-strangulation during masturbation and is said to be mainly done by teenage boys or men.
The 82 deaths were spread across 31 states. Nearly 90 percent were boys, at an average age of about 13, the CDC found.
Three or fewer deaths were reported from 1995 through 2004. They jumped to 22 in 2005, 35 in 2006 and at least nine in 2007. It's not clear what drove the increase in recent years, investigators said.
CDC officials urged parents to be aware the fad exists, and to watch for possible warning signs like blood-shot eyes, marks on the neck, frequent and severe headaches.
The report is week in a CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The report is being published this
diorientation after spending time alone, and ropes, scarves or belts tied to bedroom furniture or doorknobs or found knotted on the floor.
82 is probably an undercount. They could not rely on death certificates, which do not differentiate choking-game deaths from other unintentional strangulation deaths. Instead, they relied mainly on a news database that is large but doesn't include
"One thing that really needs to happen — and is starting to happen now — is to get more information about how common this is."
The authors acknowledged that
PATRICIA RUSSELL Mother of victim
all media outlets.
It's likely that there are about 100 U.S. choking game deaths each year, said Dr. Tom Andrew, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner, who has been studying the phenomenon for several years.
Andrew said many coroners and medical examiners likely label the deaths as suicides because they don't have the time or resources to interview a victim's friends and look for
alternate explanations.
Many of the children who died from the choking game were described as bright, athletic students who apparently were intrigued by a method of getting high that doesn't involve drugs or alcohol, he said.
They watch it on YouTube, or hear about it in school or at summer camp, said Sharron Grant, a woman who founded an advocacy group called Games Adolescents Shouldn't Play (GASP).
Choking game fatalities are not nearly as common as suicide deaths among youths who choose hanging or suffocation. About 5,100 such suicide deaths were reported from 1995 through 2007, and while it's possible some were unrecognized choking game deaths, most were believed to be actual suicides, said Robin Toblin, a CDC epidemiologist.
Variations of the game have been around for decades, but the trend of doing it alone seems to be recent Andrew said.
The only person to speak in support of the proposal was the man who proposed it — atheist Raymond Zbylut, who said the gesture would honor the civil rights work of Murray O'Hair, who was not from Omaha.
OMAHA, Neb. — Citing community opposition, the City Council unanimously rejected a request to erect a commemorative street sign for noted atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
Council members voted 6-0 to deny the request without discussing it. Councilman Garry Gernandt said afterward that nearly 200 constituents contacted him opposing the sign.
RELIGION
Omaha council rejects
street honoring atheist
"Most people in Omaha believe in God, and naming a street after this individual didn't match the community," Councilman Jim Vokal said.
Murray O'Hair, who filed a lawsuit that ultimately led the courts to bar organized prayer in public schools, disappeared in 1995. A former employee was convicted in her murder.