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A massive Pablo Picasso theater curtain that has graced the hallway of New York City's landmark Four Seasons Restaurant for more than 50 years will be moved to a museum, the artwork's owner said Thursday. "Le Tricorne," a 19-foot (5.8-meter) tall canvas completed in 1919 for the Ballet Russes, will find a new home at the New York Historical Society in coming months, said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. A staple of the Four Season's decor since 1959, "Le Tricorne" was at risk of losing its display space after the owner of Seagram Building, in which the restaurant is located, said the artwork could no longer be accommodated.   true       "We are deeply grateful to the New York Historical for having stepped forward to help safeguard this cultural treasure," Breen said. "Our goal was to keep it in New York and keep it in a public place." The piece was donated to the Landmarks Conservancy in 2005 by French

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Apple Inc is preparing to sell its first wearable device this October, aiming to produce 3 million to 5 million smartwatches a month in its initial run, the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Nikkei reported on Friday, citing an unidentified parts supplier and sources familiar with the matter. _0"> Specifications are still being finalized, but the devices are likely to sport curved OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays and sensors that collect health data from blood glucose and calorie consumption to sleep activity, the Japanese news service cited industry sources as saying. The industry has long expected Apple to unveil some sort of smartwatch, following the release of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Gear watches.   true       Wall Street is hoping to see a new Apple product this year to galvanize the former stock market darling's share price and end a years-long drought of ground-breaking devices. CEO Tim Cook h

The man accused of killing one person and wounding two others in a shooting spree at a small Christian college in Seattle suffers from "significant and long-standing mental health issues" that were a factor in the tragedy, his lawyer said on Friday. Speaking to reporters after a court hearing in which a judge ordered the suspect, Aaron Ybarra, 26, held without bail on suspicion of first-degree murder and assault, defense attorney Ramona Brandes also said her client had been involuntarily committed in the past because of mental illness. She added that Ybarra was sorry for the victims' pain.   true       The probable-cause statement filed in court by prosecutors said Ybarra confessed to police detectives that he was the gunman in Thursday's incident, that he had been planning a mass shooting and wanted to kill as many people as possible before killing himself. Local media reports citing unidentified police sources have said Ybarra, who is not a student at the

Americans are deeply divided over whether the Obama administration did the right thing by swapping five Taliban leaders to win the freedom of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Afghanistan prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl, according to Reuters/Ipsos survey released on Friday. Americans strongly agree the United States should make every effort to free prisoners of war like Bergdahl, an Army Sergeant who was captured in eastern class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Afghanistan in 2009. But they also think the prisoner swap deal set a dangerous precedent. The Reuters/Ipsos poll of 958 Americans interviewed online found that 44 percent disagreed with the statement that trading Taliban prisoners for Bergdahl was "the right thing to do," with 26 percent of them strongly disagreeing.   true       Twenty-nine percent of those polled said they thought the prisoner swap was the right thing to do and 27 percent said they were not sure, the poll found. Bergdahl was hande

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Apple Inc is preparing to sell its first wearable device this October, aiming to produce 3 million to 5 million smartwatches a month in its initial run, the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Nikkei reported on Friday, citing an unidentified parts supplier and sources familiar with the matter. _0"> Specifications are still being finalized, but the devices are likely to sport curved OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays and sensors that collect health data from blood glucose and calorie consumption to sleep activity, the Japanese news service cited industry sources as saying. The industry has long expected Apple to unveil some sort of smartwatch, following the release of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Gear watches.   true       Wall Street is hoping to see a new Apple product this year to galvanize the former stock market darling's share price and end a years-long drought of ground-breaking devices. CEO Tim Cook h

A federal judge deemed Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional on Friday to the delight of gay couples who immediately began rushing to county offices to wed as word of the ruling spread. The ruling marked the latest in a string of decisions by federal judges who have struck down gay marriage bans in a number of states, although the Wisconsin ruling sparked some confusion over whether such marriages could now legally go ahead. Clerks in two counties issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Friday night, and in response Wisconsin's attorney general filed an emergency motion asking the judge to stay her ruling.   true       U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which Wisconsin adopted in 2006, violates gay couples' fundamental right to marry and their equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. "Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of t

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an order to the Federal Security Service to strengthen protection of the country's border with class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine to prevent people crossing illegally, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday. _0"> The order comes a day after Putin held talks with global leaders in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France , where U.S. President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama called on him to cease support for separatists in eastern class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine and stop the provision of arms and material across the border. (Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Mark Trevelyan )

Ukraine's new president Petro Poroshenko said his country would never give up Crimea and would not compromise on its path towards closer ties with Europe, spelling out a defiant message to Russia in his inaugural speech on Saturday. The 48-year-old billionaire took the oath of office before parliament, buoyed by Western support but facing a crisis in relations with Russia as a separatist uprising seethes in the east of his country. Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March, weeks after street protests ousted Poroshenko's pro-Moscow predecessor Viktor Yanukovich, in a move that has provoked the deepest crisis in relations with the West since the Cold War.   true       "Citizens of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine will never enjoy the beauty of peace unless we settle our relations with Russia. Russia occupied Crimea, which was, is, and will be, Ukrainian soil," Poroshenko said in a speech that drew a standing ovation. He said he had delivered

First lady Michelle Obama remembered poet, author and civil rights champion Maya Angelou on Saturday as a dominant cultural force who taught black women and people of all races to celebrate their own worth and beauty. Obama credited the writer's works, including her pioneering 1969 autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," with helping carry a young black girl from the South Side of Chicago to the White House. "She celebrated black women's beauty like no one ever had before," Obama said to more than 2,000 people at Angelou's private memorial service in North Carolina. "She told us our worth had nothing to do with what the world might say."   true       Former President Bill Clinton, media magnate Oprah Winfrey and actress Cicely Tyson also honored Angelou during the service at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, where she lived and taught for three decades. Angelou was 86 when she died at her home on May 28 after years of fail

A wave of car bombs exploded across Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 60 people, and militants stormed a university campus in western Iraq, security and medical sources said. In total, there were a dozen blasts in mainly Shi'ite districts of the capital, the deadliest of which occurred in Bayaa, where a car bomb left 23 people dead, many of them young men playing billiards. "I was about to close my shop when I heard a huge explosion on the main commercial street," said Kareem Abdulla, whose legs were still shaking from the shock. "I saw many cars set ablaze as well as shops". Other bombs went off near a cinema, a popular juice shop and a Shi'ite mosque. No group immediately claimed responsibility for any of the bombings, but the Shi'ite community is a frequent target for Sunni Islamist insurgents who have been regaining ground and momentum in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Iraq over the past year. Since Thursday alone, militants h

Bond giant Pimco posted $5.5 billion in net outflows across its U.S. open-end mutual funds in May, extending the firm’s record outflow streak to 12 straight months, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Morningstar data showed on Tuesday. _0"> Pacific class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Investment Management Co, a unit of European financial services company Allianz SE, had $1.94 trillion in assets as of March 31, according to the firm's website. (Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by James Dalgleish )

Activist investor Carl Icahn acquired 6.8 million common shares of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Fannie Mae and 5.7 million common shares of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Freddie Mac from Fairholme Funds, a court filing showed Tuesday. _0"> Icahn, a billionaire investor known for taking big stakes in companies and pushing for management change, bought the shares in the major mortgage financiers in March, the filing showed. As of March 31, Fairholme owned a 1.65 percent stake in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Fannie Mae and a 2.64 percent stake in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Freddie Mac , according to Thomson Reuters data. Mutual fund manager Bruce Berkowitz is the founder of Fairholme Capital Management. Regulators took control of Fannie and Freddie, which own or guarantee about 60 percent of all U.S. home loans, in 2008 after losses stemming from subprime mortgage investments pushed them to the brink of insolvency. Both co

Many amateur genealogists start digging into their family histories just to see what is out there and then get seriously hooked. They may be in for an arduous and costly project. That happened to Janet Judge about six years ago after her children challenged her to identify family members in old photos. The 59-year-old nurse from Albany, New York, started with a $300-a-year subscription to Ancestry.com, which at 14 billion records has the largest online collection of genealogical significance. What Judge found enabled her to identify all the people in the pictures. After that, she kept on going. So she paid an additional $275 to one of Ireland's family research centers, a collection of county-based groups that can be found online, and spent a couple of thousand dollars for two trips to that country. Interest in genealogy is on the rise as more and more old records are digitized. Without leaving home, someone in the United States can find material filed in Poland 150 years ago

One morning in April, my Yahoo email account was disabled for no apparent reason. As a freelancer, my email account is my professional lifeline. But it wasn't just the security threat or potential for lost business that upset me. It was my personal history: jokes my brother sent me weeks before he died, emails from friends I hadn't seen in years, love letters from my wife. In the seven weeks since my account was shut, I've spent about 12 hours on hold with Yahoo customer service and corresponded with the company at least 15 times. Meanwhile, fearing a security breach, I changed the passwords to all of my online accounts, ordered new credit cards and had the credit reporting agency Equifax put my status on "fraud alert." I emailed contacts not to use or trust my old email address which may have been hacked. And I still don't have my email account back. Since then, I've learned it wasn't a security threat that was the problem. It was a question of

Once upon a time, bingo was the biggest game in town at the local senior center. But you're far more likely to find today's seniors manning a slot machine at the local casino - and some have become gambling addicts. Problem gambling among older people is on the rise. Seniors have time and money on their hands, and the proliferation of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> casinos in most regions of the country has made gambling more convenient. “What we are seeing is that seniors are the backbone of the modern casino industry,” says Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), a non-profit organization that advocates for programs and services to help problem gamblers and their families. "The class="mandelbrot_refrag"> marketing and promotion to seniors is light-years from what it was." Experts say gray gambling addiction will become more prevalent as the baby boomers age. “Boomers are the first generation

In the wake of a spate of data breaches highlighting the vulnerability of companies that hold consumer information, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> MasterCard Inc announced last week it would apply the same rules to PIN-based debit card transactions as those used for credit cards: zero liability when fraud is reported. "Fraud and identity theft have been in the news a lot lately. We want to give cardholders peace of mind," says MasterCard spokeswoman Beth Kitchener. The breach at Target last year, which affected more than 40 million customers, is still a top concern for many. For consumers who have MasterCard-branded debit cards, the extension of zero liability means some things will change, while others won't. Here is what you need to know about the new policy, which takes effect on Oct. 1. Q: Does this mean that using a debit card is just as safe for transactions as using a credit card? A: Not exactly. While those who have MasterCard-branded debit cards

It is this year’s bargain: central banks will remain easy, allowing asset prices to march higher despite all those pesky details about growth and inflation. There is lots of evidence to show this is a genuine phenomenon - the ECB is expected to ease on Thursday, perhaps in new and creative ways, and the Federal Reserve, while theorizing about some fine day it will raise rates, is careful not to encourage any breath-holding. And class="mandelbrot_refrag"> markets are doing their part, with asset prices of both stocks and bonds rising slowly and steadily, all amidst unusually low volatility. Not only is the benchmark class="mandelbrot_refrag"> S&P 500 index up 5 percent this year, and 17 percent over one full year, yields on benchmark 10-year U.S. government bonds have fallen strongly in most major markets, powering gains almost across the board in fixed income. Low volatility may be key to understanding both what is happening and why. Investors app

Americans are borrowing more, renting more rather than owning, eating in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> restaurants more and saving less, leading inevitably to questions of sustainability. That’s true both for Americans and for the corporations whose profits they create. What’s more, the kind of financing backing all this indicates that a goodly bit of the balance sheet straining activity is concentrated lower down the income and wealth scale. Juxtapose this with vertiginous rates of corporate profitability (and intriguing hints that a top may have been hit) and you have the making of some serious upcoming tests for the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy and stock market.   true       First, let’s look at Americans and their cars. A record 27.9 percent of all new car sales so far this year were leases, according to Edmunds.com, while those who did decide to buy did so with record-long loan terms of 66 months on average. Interestingly, leasing, which

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Google confessed last week that it has a miserable record hiring and retaining women and minorities. The tech giant responded to public pressure - including protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the company's annual meeting - by releasing data about the gender and ethnic makeup of its workforce, and the numbers aren't pretty. Women make up just 30 percent of Google's workforce, and the company is 61 percent white. Asians represent 30 percent of Google's workers, but Hispanics represent 3 percent and African Americans just 2 percent. Yet class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Google didn't disclose one of the most important diversity statistic about its workers: their age.   true       Age plays second fiddle in Corporate America to racial and gender workforce diversity, but it needs to be addressed. The country is getting grayer; workers need - and want - to stay employed longer. "It is hard to address thes

Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund at Pimco, said Thursday the firm believes the 'new neutral' inflation-adjusted federal funds rate will be close to 0 percent as opposed to 2-3 percent in prior decades. "If 'The New Neutral' rates stay low, it supports current prices of financial assets," Gross said in his latest investment letter. "They would appear to be less bubbly." Pacific class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Investment Management Co, which manages $1.94 trillion in assets, introduced its new-neutral outlook in May. New Neutral suggests the global class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy is transforming from a post-financial crisis recovery period called the New Normal in 2009, toward stability characterized by modest economic growth over the next three-to-five years. "Commonsensically it seems to me that the more finance-based and highly levered an class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy

The most cutting-edge technology cannot contain one of the biggest cyber hacking threats on Wall Street: sloppy actions by brokers and other industry employees. Brokerage firm workers have taped sensitive passwords to their computer monitors and stored them in binders labeled "passwords," according to officials from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog. Some firms give login information to temporary workers and forget to cut them off after their assignment is complete. At the regulator's conference in May, examiners traded tales of brokerage firm behaviors they had found that could lead to security breaches. One firm, for example, used the very-guessable "username" as the username and "password" for the password that gave access to the company's router, enabling access to the firm's sensitive data. The problems are coming to light as major online security breaches in other industr