(Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc said strength in its wireless business was tempered by weakness in its traditional wireline unit, producing softer-than-expected revenue growth for the quarter and sending its shares down nearly 2 percent.
The telecommunications company said on Thursday that corporate and government customers were cutting costs, partly offsetting better-than-estimated wireless customer growth. Also, wireless profit margins were hurt by higher costs.
While analysts described the results as solid, they noted investors would have liked better news since Verizon shares had risen more than 17 percent since the end of 2012 in anticipation of strong growth prospects.
"The results were very good but at these valuations even very good might not be good enough," said Moffett Research analyst Craig Moffett.
Some of Verizon's strong valuation has been due to investor expectations it would be able to increase its earnings by buying out Vodafone Group Plc's 45 percent stake in their Verizon Wireless venture.
But Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo did not address the matter during his earnings call. "Their silence on the topic of buying in the Vodafone stake could be disappointing to some investors," Moffett said.
In an interview with Reuters, Shammo declined to comment on the prospects for a Vodafone deal.
The executive said about 60 percent of its decline in wireline revenue was due to shrinking government spending while the rest came from corporate spending cuts. He added that he was not expecting any big turnaround for the rest of the year.
While operating revenue rose 4.3 percent at $29.8 billion from $28.55 billion, it was shy of estimates of $29.83 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Its wireless profit margin came to 49.8 percent, based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which was below five analyst estimates between 50 percent and 50.9 percent.
Evercore analyst Jonathan Schildkraut noted that higher-than-expected wireless customer departures, known in the industry as churn, would have increased the company's costs. Verizon reported churn of 0.93 percent, compared with his expectations for 0.9 percent.
Verizon may have lost some customers to No. 4 U.S. wireless provider T-Mobile US Inc, according to Moffett. T-Mobile US is pushing hard to stem customer net losses by aggressive cost-cutting and marketing.
NOT A 'BLOW-DOWN-THE DOORS' QUARTER
Analysts said ahead of the earnings report that they expect Verizon, the first of the U.S. telecommunications companies to report second-quarter results, to take the lion's share of mobile customer growth in the quarter.
But they also expect competition to get tougher as the year progresses because No. 3 U.S. mobile service provider Sprint Corp, which was recently bought by Japan's SoftBank Corp, may be able to compete much better with the help of SoftBank's investments.
On the plus side, Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile service provider, added 941,000 subscribers in the second quarter, which compared well with the average expectation for 836,500 from six analysts contacted by Reuters. Estimates ranged from 700,000 to 909,000.
It also forecast that net subscriber additions would increase sequentially in the remaining two quarters of 2013.
"It wasn't a blow-the-doors-down quarter, but it was a solid quarter," said Schildkraut, who was impressed with Verizon's customer growth. "It's an expensive stock and they need to do a lot to support that."
Excluding a pension-related gain, Verizon said it earned 73 cents per share, compared with expectations for 72 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Verizon said it increased its capital spending budget to between $16.4 billion and $16.6 billion for the full year, compared with its previous target of $16.2 billion.
The company said it will need to spend more as it anticipates higher demand for wireless data services, and will have to start using a new chunk of wireless airwaves.
Verizon added 161,000 net new FiOS Internet customers and 140,000 net new FiOS video connections in the quarter.
Verizon's earnings rose to $2.25 billion, or 78 cents per share, from $1.83 billion, or 64 cents, in the year-ago quarter.
AT&T Inc, the No. 2 U.S. mobile provider, is scheduled to report earnings on July 23, and Sprint is due to report on July 30.
Verizon shares were down 92 cents, or 1.8 percent, at $49.82 in late-morning trade on New York Stock Exchange.
Adam Rubenfire Automotive News July 17, 2013 - 12:10 pm ET -- UPDATED: 7/17/13 4:11 pm ET - adds clarification
Editor's note: Earlier versions of this story, citing a plaintiffs' lawsuit and press release, mentioned a "MyMercury Touch" System. A Ford spokesman said today that such a system never existed because the Mercury brand ceased to exist before the infotainment system was launched.
A proposed class-action lawsuit was filed against Ford Motor Co., alleging that the MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch infotainment systems are defective.
In a 41-page compliant filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the Center for Defensive Driving alleges that the system -- which was tested in a 2013 F-150 Lariat pickup leased by the organization -- often freezes, fails to respond to voice and touch commands and has a poor connection with mobile phones and MP3 players.
The CDD offers free educational presentations on defensive driving to the public, according to its Web site. The organization's three directors are volunteers; it has no paid staff.
The complaint alleges that Ford knew about the defects but did not disclose the problems to potential customers. Ford has issued several technical service bulletins regarding system errors, and the company upgraded and extended the warranty on the system following complaints last year.
In 2011, Ford CEO Alan Mulally acknowledged problems with the system, but said that customers would be satisfied after the upgrade that was released last year.
In November 2012, Ford reported that there were 400 problems with the MyFord Touch system for every 1,000 vehicles, according to Reuters. The company has pledged to resolve at least 40 of those problems by August, the report said.
A Ford spokesman said the automaker does not comment on pending litigation.
The suit cites several NHTSA complaints regarding the defect and also points out that David Sargent, vice president of global vehicle research at J.D. Power and Associates, told The New York Times that the infotainment system was a primary reason for Ford's decline in the firm's rankings.
Monetary damages
Although the suit claims that the faulty system represents a safety risk, the main aim of the suit is to seek damages related to the inconvenience of the product defects, Jason Zwieg, an attorney for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, said. The firm is representing the CDD.
Zwieg said the monetary value of damages alleged in the suit will be determined during the discovery phase. He said interest in the suit has been high, but declined to comment on additional plaintiffs.
CDD President Chris Knox said the defective systems present a safety issue because they force drivers to use their mobile device manually instead of using voice commands. He said Ford should discontinue the MyFordTouch system instead of trying to improve it.
"Ford needs to scrap it, not update it," Knox said in an interview.
Ironically, the CDD claims on its Web site that the Ford Motor Company Fund, a charitable arm of the automaker, is a founding sponsor. A spokeswoman for the chartable fund confirmed that it had issued a grant to the CDD.
THE CENTER FOR DEFENSIVE DRIVING V. FORD MOTOR COMPANY
You can reach Adam Rubenfire at arubenfire@crain.com.
First project to study access to medical and dental care in the adult population in Rhode Island
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Dozens of autism experts across a variety of specialties have joined together to form the Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment (RI-CART). The consortium will bring together researchers, physicians, scientists, service providers, educators and parents to collaborate on a broad range of research, education and advocacy projects.
"This is such an important step for Rhode Island when you consider that one in 88 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism and more than one million children in the country are directly affected by autism," said Thomas Anders, M.D., a senior consultant for the project. "By establishing this unique model of collaboration, Rhode Island is demonstrating its commitment to tackling integrated scientific research on autism and autism spectrum disorders."
The RI-CART group is made up of the state's leading experts on autism research, education, health and advocacy. Organizations represented in RI-CART include Bradley Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital, Women & Infants Hospital, Butler Hospital, Memorial Hospital, Brown University and its Warren Alpert Medical School, the Brown Institute for Brain Science, the Brown Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute, Gateway Healthcare, Rhode Island College, University of Rhode Island, The Autism Project, the Groden Network, The NeuroDevelopment Center, Rhode Island Technical Assistance Project, the Rhode Island Department of Education and the Rhode Island Department of Health, Office of Special Needs.
The consortium will work to improve the lives of Rhode Islanders with autism spectrum disorders by promoting collaborative, cutting-edge research on causes and origins, treatment, and support services.
Key objectives include:
Supporting basic, clinical and behavioral research across disciplines and institutions
Creating a research infrastructure, including a statewide web-based research registry.
Improving and expanding diagnostic and treatment methods.
Informing state and federal policymakers about autism spectrum disorders.
Rhode Island provides a unique setting for this sort of collaboration. With just over one million residents and 1,000 square miles, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the nation and can be travelled in about an hour. The population is diverse, and the state has a single department of health, a children's hospital and a medical school. These qualities enable RI-CART to share resources and expertise; enroll representative research sample populations quickly, and study them over time; test and rapidly roll out new ways to improve clinical care, and access government and academic leaders to develop new research collaborations and public policies.
"Collaborative, multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional teams such as RI-CART can be difficult to build, yet are essential for tackling important problems posed by autism," said Eric Morrow M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at Brown University, co-director of the RI-CART Research Committee and an autism genetics researcher at Bradley Hospital. "The RI-CART group has fostered a clear enthusiasm for working together from the start."
Morrow continued, "The spirit has been there for several years, but it took initial seed funding from several Rhode Island institutions to accelerate the efforts. The Brown Institute for Brain Science, the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute, Bradley Hospital, Women & Infants Hospital and the Groden Network, all invested seed funds in the project late in 2012, which enabled us to reach the point we are at today."
The first project to be launched by RI-CART is a $53,000 Rhode Island Foundation grant to study primary care for those with autism. A team will assess 150 adolescents and adults with autism to determine the full spectrum of their primary health care needs (medical, dental, and vision), as well as barriers or obstacles to obtaining primary care. This research project will be Rhode Island's first examination of the health needs of those with autism spectrum disorders.
"This is a population with more medical and specialty care needs than the average population, so we want to figure out how to streamline the process, so families don't have to struggle to receive the care they need for their loved ones," said Henry Sachs, M.D., chief medical officer of Bradley Hospital and the study's primary investigator. "The comprehensive report and recommendations from this study will hopefully lead to more effective options for care for Rhode Islanders with autism in the near future."
###
For a video of Sachs discussing the research project, please visit: http://www.bradleyhasbroresearch.org/Media/player.aspx?ID=58094/Adult-Autism-Study/
For more information about RI-CART, please call 401-432-1200, or visit http://www.AutismRI.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rhode Island autism experts unite to launch first-of-its-kind research and advocacy consortiumPublic release date: 18-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
First project to study access to medical and dental care in the adult population in Rhode Island
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Dozens of autism experts across a variety of specialties have joined together to form the Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment (RI-CART). The consortium will bring together researchers, physicians, scientists, service providers, educators and parents to collaborate on a broad range of research, education and advocacy projects.
"This is such an important step for Rhode Island when you consider that one in 88 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism and more than one million children in the country are directly affected by autism," said Thomas Anders, M.D., a senior consultant for the project. "By establishing this unique model of collaboration, Rhode Island is demonstrating its commitment to tackling integrated scientific research on autism and autism spectrum disorders."
The RI-CART group is made up of the state's leading experts on autism research, education, health and advocacy. Organizations represented in RI-CART include Bradley Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital, Women & Infants Hospital, Butler Hospital, Memorial Hospital, Brown University and its Warren Alpert Medical School, the Brown Institute for Brain Science, the Brown Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute, Gateway Healthcare, Rhode Island College, University of Rhode Island, The Autism Project, the Groden Network, The NeuroDevelopment Center, Rhode Island Technical Assistance Project, the Rhode Island Department of Education and the Rhode Island Department of Health, Office of Special Needs.
The consortium will work to improve the lives of Rhode Islanders with autism spectrum disorders by promoting collaborative, cutting-edge research on causes and origins, treatment, and support services.
Key objectives include:
Supporting basic, clinical and behavioral research across disciplines and institutions
Creating a research infrastructure, including a statewide web-based research registry.
Improving and expanding diagnostic and treatment methods.
Informing state and federal policymakers about autism spectrum disorders.
Rhode Island provides a unique setting for this sort of collaboration. With just over one million residents and 1,000 square miles, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the nation and can be travelled in about an hour. The population is diverse, and the state has a single department of health, a children's hospital and a medical school. These qualities enable RI-CART to share resources and expertise; enroll representative research sample populations quickly, and study them over time; test and rapidly roll out new ways to improve clinical care, and access government and academic leaders to develop new research collaborations and public policies.
"Collaborative, multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional teams such as RI-CART can be difficult to build, yet are essential for tackling important problems posed by autism," said Eric Morrow M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor at Brown University, co-director of the RI-CART Research Committee and an autism genetics researcher at Bradley Hospital. "The RI-CART group has fostered a clear enthusiasm for working together from the start."
Morrow continued, "The spirit has been there for several years, but it took initial seed funding from several Rhode Island institutions to accelerate the efforts. The Brown Institute for Brain Science, the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute, Bradley Hospital, Women & Infants Hospital and the Groden Network, all invested seed funds in the project late in 2012, which enabled us to reach the point we are at today."
The first project to be launched by RI-CART is a $53,000 Rhode Island Foundation grant to study primary care for those with autism. A team will assess 150 adolescents and adults with autism to determine the full spectrum of their primary health care needs (medical, dental, and vision), as well as barriers or obstacles to obtaining primary care. This research project will be Rhode Island's first examination of the health needs of those with autism spectrum disorders.
"This is a population with more medical and specialty care needs than the average population, so we want to figure out how to streamline the process, so families don't have to struggle to receive the care they need for their loved ones," said Henry Sachs, M.D., chief medical officer of Bradley Hospital and the study's primary investigator. "The comprehensive report and recommendations from this study will hopefully lead to more effective options for care for Rhode Islanders with autism in the near future."
###
For a video of Sachs discussing the research project, please visit: http://www.bradleyhasbroresearch.org/Media/player.aspx?ID=58094/Adult-Autism-Study/
For more information about RI-CART, please call 401-432-1200, or visit http://www.AutismRI.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in handcuffs, center, is escorted from a court in Kirov, Russia Thursday, July 18, 2013. Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison. Navalny and his supporters claimed the case was politically driven to try to shut down the vehement Kremlin critic and intimidate his supporters. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in handcuffs, center, is escorted from a court in Kirov, Russia Thursday, July 18, 2013. Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison. Navalny and his supporters claimed the case was politically driven to try to shut down the vehement Kremlin critic and intimidate his supporters. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, left, embraces his wife Yulia at a court room in Kirov, Russia on Thursday, July 18, 2013. Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, embraces his wife Yulia at a court in Kirov, Russia on Thursday, July 18, 2013. Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny supporters stay outside a court in Kirov, Russia onThursday, July 18, 2013. Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison. The poster at the background reads : Putin is afraid of Navalny. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny smiles, as he listens to judge in a court in Kirov, Russia on Thursday, July 18, 2013. A Russian judge on Thursday found Navalny guilty of embezzlement, a finding that could bring the charismatic anti-corruption blogger and Moscow mayoral candidate up to six years in prison. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman)
KIROV, Russia (AP) ? Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison.
Navalny and his supporters claimed the case was politically driven to try to shut down the vehement Kremlin critic and intimidate his supporters.
Navalny was found guilty of heading a group that embezzled 16 million rubles' ($500,000) worth of timber from state-owned company Kirovles in 2009 while he worked as an unpaid adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov, about 760 kilometers (470 miles) east of Moscow.
The 37-year-old lawyer played with his smartphone for much of the nearly 3 ?-hour verdict reading. A post on his Twitter account after the sentence was pronounced said, "Oh, well. Don't get bored without me. And, importantly, don't be idle ..."
Navalny handed the phone and his watch to his wife, Yulia, before bailiffs took custody of him and co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov, who was given a four-year sentence.
The case raised criticism of Russia for efforts to stifle opposition.
"We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of Alexei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitservov and the apparent political motivations in this trial," U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul said on Facebook.
Navalny, who was a fellow at Yale University in 2010, first came to wide attention for vigorous blogging about corruption. He was a top leader of the wave of massive protest rallies that broke out in late 2011 after a national parliamentary election scarred by allegations of widespread fraud.
It was Navalny who first called the dominant United Russia party "the party of crooks and thieves," a phrase that became a rallying cry for the nascent opposition to Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin.
More recently, he pushed his ambitions by declaring himself a candidate for this fall's Moscow mayoral election.
The head of his campaign staff, Leonid Volkov, told The Associated Press that "our stand agreed upon with the candidate was that in case of a real prison sentence we will not take part in the election campaign."
Russian news reports said Navalny would be taken to a detention facility in Kirov before being sent to a prison.
Several dozen Navalny supporters gathered outside the detention facility soon after the sentencing.
Navalny's wife appeared composed after seeing her husband taken away in handcuffs, saying, "If someone hopes that Alexei's investigations will cease, that's wrong."
Catherine Ashton, foreign policy chief for the European Union, said she was concerned about the conviction and sentence, saying in a statement that the charges had not been substantiated during the trial.
"This outcome, given the procedural shortcomings, raises serious questions as to the state of the rule of law in Russia," she said.
The Russian stock market, sensitive to politically charged issues, dove within minutes of the verdict, with the main MICEX index dropping 1.4 percent before partly recovering.
Before the sentencing, Navalny's supporters had said they would rally in Moscow if he were sent to prison. That could provoke a confrontation with police, who routinely crack down harshly on any unsanctioned rallies.
The judge said he found the testimony of key prosecution witness Vyacheslav Opalev to be "trustworthy and consistent."
Opalev, who was the timber company's general director, got a suspended sentence in an expedited trial in December after pleading guilty to conspiring with Navalny.
Navalny insists Opalev framed him out of revenge: Navalny had recommended that Opalev be fired and that officials investigate potential corruption in his company, which had incurred 200 million rubles ($6 million) in losses by the time Navalny arrived in the region.
Throughout the trial, testimony of prosecution witnesses clashed with the core arguments of the indictment that claimed Navalny's work in Kirov led to the embezzlement. None of the managers at Kirovles who appeared in court, except for Opalev, was able to confirm that Navalny defrauded the company.
Navalny had long said he expected to be convicted, and in a final blog post before leaving Moscow for Kirov, he downplayed his personal importance to the wider opposition.
"The most important thing is to muster up the strength, shake off laziness and do something. This doesn't require any leadership as such," he wrote.
---
Jim Heintz and Aliaksei Pakrovsky in Moscow and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this story.
When we learned that Louis C.K. was using Woody Allen's longtime editor Susan E. Morse?and acting in Allen's Blue Jasmine, we got excited that the two greatest redheaded comedians ever (sorry, Carrot Top and Kathy Griffin) were going to become best friends. It seems like our wishes came true. Allen, in an interview with the New York Times, said he didn't know C.K.'s work beforehand, first seeing him while trying to watch Bobby Cannavale in one of C.K.'s short films. "He?s clearly such a sweet guy. I was dying to use him in something, so we used him to play the sweeter guy [in Blue Jasmine]," Allen explained. But Allen doesn't see this as the last time the two will work together:?
I?d love to do a movie with him and me, a comedy. I?m looking for some idea that would work, for the two of us to do. Of course I hope that people aren?t disappointed that I don?t act with him [in Blue Jasmine], and he doesn?t have a commensurately comic part with his talent. But some day, I will get something that we could do together, because I do think it would be fun. I?m such a great fan of his. "
Allen explained that he racked his brain ? "What would be a fun picture? My first thought for a while was, Can I come up with something at the moment that I could do with Louis C.K.?" ? however, he couldn't get the "right idea" for them before he needed to start working on another movie (which became the upcoming Emma Stone?Colin Firth movie).?
It was watching another comedian, Mort Sahl, recently, however, that made Allen start "toying with the idea" of trying stand-up again. "I would love to see if I could," he explained. "Just getting together an hour of stuff to talk about would be a lot of work." If only Allen were famous for constantly working ... oh wait.?
The creator of the classic video game "Pong" has taken to Kickstarter for his next video game project.
When it comes to video games, you can't get much more classic than "Pong," the 1972 Atari game which essentially spearheaded the ascension of the modern video game industry. But now that even Atari's US chapter has been forced to file for bankruptcy, what is "Pong" creator Al Alcorn to do when he's inspired to produce a new video game?
Like many of colleagues, Alcorn has looked to Kickstarter for the answer.
Along with fellow Atari veteran Roger Hector, Alcorn recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for a trivia card game called "Seriously?!" The game will run on iOS and Android and the game developers note that it will be "hosted" by a "Siri-like" character ? essentially, a snarkier version of the iconic virtual assistant that's already become the butt of so many jokes. There are also plans to introduce a number of celebrity hosts including Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, who makes a guest appearance in the game's pitch video.
As a comic trivia game, "Seriously?!" bears an unmistakable homage to popular games like "Cards Against Humanity" (basically a more adult version of "Apples to Apples") and "You Don't Know Jack" (the same, but for "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire"). The idea with "Seriously?!" is to combine tabletop games like "Cards" with their virtual counterparts. Phones or tablets running the game will scan the physical cards and then play a visual or audio cue for contestants. Kickstarter backers will also be able to submit their own sample questions or challenges for the game. Alcorn and Hector said that anyone who gets their work accepted will be credited as a game designer in the final product.
With 25 days left to go, "Seriously?!" has a little more than $3,300 of its $100,000 goal.
Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: Yannick.LeJacq@nbcuni.com.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uHFc3P16WiwT7vKVTh9S6lEFzKWE6I2MfDiOsDUxRlHT4YGM7pg0XSwPhxmp_dd6tbAga1Sq7eFRZILBqNKwo6pjbw_p-ewl1q-7zzL68=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 18-Jul-2013
Share ] 
