Richard Green is a professor in the Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. This blog will feature commentary on the current state of housing, commercial real estate, mortgage finance, and urban development around the world. It may also at times have ruminations about graduate business education.
(Reuters) - China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) will buy half of Chesapeake Energy Corp's Mississippi Lime oil and gas properties in Oklahoma for $1.02 billion to increase its presence in the booming North American shale gas industry.
Output from shale fields in the United States and Canada has jumped over the last three years due to the advent of drilling methods such as hydraulic fracturing.
Companies in China, which has the largest shale reserves in the world, are keen to get the know-how of drilling in such unconventional fields.
China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd has struck a deal to buy Canadian oil and gas company Nexen Inc for $15.1 billion, while Pioneer Natural Resources Co said last month it would sell a stake in its assets in the Wolfcamp shale field of Texas to Sinochem Group for $1.7 billion.
Sinopec, Asia's largest oil refiner, will buy 50 percent of Chesapeake's 850,000 acres of net oil and natural gas leasehold properties in the Mississippi Lime shale field in northern Oklahoma, the companies said.
The Mississippi Lime assets will be bought by Sinopec International.
"The deal is about $200 million below our modeled assumption for similar acreage but (with) more production," analysts at investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co said.
Chesapeake shares were down marginally at $20.40 in premarket trading on Monday. The stock has risen about 23 percent this year.
However, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Neal Dingmann. said the deal was very positive for Chesapeake.
"The price based on all metrics appears better than what myself or the Street expected, especially the $2,400 per acre metric," he said.
Chesapeake has about 2.1 million net acres of leasehold in the Mississippi Lime region, which straddles northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas.
Chesapeake's production from the Mississippi Lime region jumped 208 percent to an average of 32,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the fourth quarter, the company reported this month.
About 45 percent of the total output was oil, 46 percent was natural gas and the rest was natural gas liquids.
Sinopec's deal with Chesapeake, the second-largest gas producer in the United States, will help the Oklahoma City-based company cut down its debt, which stood at $12 billion as of December 31.
Chesapeake, which closed $12 billion of asset sales last year, is targeting asset sales of $4 billion to $7 billion in 2013, the company said in a presentation earlier this month.
Chesapeake said in December it would sell most of its natural gas processing and gathering assets for $2.16 billion to Access Midstream Partners LP .
The company's board and big shareholders are trying to rein in spending, pay down debt and increase production of more profitable oil.
Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon, who co-founded the company in 1989, is stepping down on April 1 following a tumultuous year during which the company faced a liquidity crunch and a governance crisis.
Sinopec struck a deal with Devon Energy Corp in January 2012 to buy a third of the U.S. oil and natural gas producer's interest in five developing fields for about $2.2 billion.
Just 12 hours after (already denied) rumors circulated that Barnes & Noble may ditch its Nook business, the company has had to make an announcement concerning its retail division. Thanks to SEC regulations, the company has had to 'fess up that majority shareholder and "founder*" Leonard Riggio is pondering buying the brick-and-mortar retail business -- presumably hiving off the Nook brand as a separate entity. Of course, this could easily just be the rattling of sabers by a disgruntled founder (and not for the first time of late), or we might see the bookseller cleft in two parts in the near future. Either way, we'll be watching with great interest.
* He founded the book chain that would buy the Barnes & Noble name.
There is a new wireless dock in tow, which is known as the Dell Wireless Dock that is touted by Dell (of course) to deliver best-in-class untethered docking experience alongside the Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook for speedy, flexible connectivity between devices and peripherals. The WiGig standard is being championed by Dell and Wilocity, where it ushers in a new age of mainstream wireless connectivity by boasting speeds of up to 10 times faster compared to normal Wi-Fi, not to mention being able to transmit high quality video streams without missing a beat.
The Dell Wireless Dock intends to spearhead the docking solution market by offering the latest multi-gigabit tri-band Wi-Fi standard (WiGig) which will also be compatible with the award-winning Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook, making it the ideal connectivity solution in conference rooms and classrooms, helping usher the world into a new world of wireless connectivity. Expect to pick up the Dell Wireless Dock for $249. [Press Release]
Related articles: Outlook.com And Hotmail Services Restored Intel Clovertrail+ Atom Processors Announced YouTube To Start Charging For Channels (Rumor) Yahoo Employees No Longer Able To Work From Home
A pistachio wholesaler shows his goods at his shop in Tehran in November 2006.
Iran has ordered a six-month ban on pistachio exports to try to control the price of the nut, which has doubled in the past month.
Pistachios are among Iran's top non-oil exports and widely consumed at home, bringing in an average of $1.5 billion a year and providing work for hundreds of thousands of people.
Iran was long the world's largest pistachio exporter, with over 200,000 tons a year, but was surpassed last year by the United States.
First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iranian state TV on Friday that the ban is temporary and meant to help bring down the price of pistachios that doubled from about 250,000 Iranian rials per kilogram ($3.18 per pound).
Western sanctions over Iran's controversial nuclear program have slowed the country's economy and disrupted foreign trade.
The Associated Press
Related:
Iran says it's willing to talk about nukes but 'enemies' must stop 'pointing the gun'
Analysis: Iran's Ahmadinejad will fight 'like Scarface' for his political future
Iranian: 'Our money is becoming more and more worthless every day'
Risk of leukemia after cancer chemotherapy persistsPublic release date: 14-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrea Slesinski aslesinski@hematology.org American Society of Hematology
(WASHINGTON)- While advancements in cancer treatment over the last several decades have improved patient survival rates for certain cancers, some patients remain at risk of developing treatment-related leukemia, according to results of a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).
Chemotherapy is often a highly effective treatment for cancer, but certain drugs have also been shown in a range of studies to increase a patient's risk of developing therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (tAML), a rare but frequently fatal condition. Thanks to significant advancements in therapy resulting in improved patient survival rates for certain cancers over the last several decades, researchers and clinicians now aim to design treatment regimens that maximize patient survival while minimizing short- and long-term complications.
"In the course of improving interventions and survival rates in many types of cancer, we have learned that certain chemotherapies can cause damage to cells in the bone marrow, increasing a patient's risk of leukemia. However, no recent large-scale studies have evaluated how the risk of treatment-related leukemia has evolved with the changing treatment strategies," said Lindsay Morton, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and lead author of the study.
To examine how the risk of tAML has evolved over time among cancer patients treated with chemotherapy, Dr. Morton and a team of researchers at the NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics evaluated data from cancer registries in the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, identifying adult patients ages 20-84 who were diagnosed with cancer (any type) between 1975 and 2008 and who were treated with chemotherapy. SEER data files were reviewed to determine tAML risk based on first type of cancer, time since diagnosis, age at diagnosis, and year of diagnosis.
Among the 426,068 patients whose data were eligible for analysis, Dr. Morton's team confirmed 801cases of tAML, nearly five times more than the number of cases expected in the general population. To help explain the changes in relative risk over time, investigators compared the trends in the data with evolving treatment recommendations and major therapeutic discoveries as described in the medical literature. While patient information in the SEER database did not include data on specific drugs or doses, the incidence trends were consistent with changing treatment practices and the toxicities associated with certain chemotherapies. Notably, the proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy, both with or without radiotherapy, increased during the study period for many malignancies.
As the team compared tAML risks with trends in cancer treatment over time, they analyzed several factors that likely contributed to the differences in risk between patients, including the type of cancer initially diagnosed and the year of diagnosis. For example, trends in risk for breast cancer patients (which comprised roughly one-third of tAML cases in the study) correlated to changes in breast cancer treatment protocols over the last several decades, suggesting that the decrease in tAML risk observed among breast cancer survivors in the 1980s might be attributable to an increased use of cyclophosphamide-based chemotherapy, which is less likely to cause leukemia than earlier treatment options.
A similar decline in risk was observed among ovarian cancer patients, possibly linked to a shift in ovarian cancer chemotherapy treatment in the 1970s from melphalan, a type of chemotherapy that has been shown to trigger leukemia, to a less toxic platinum-based chemotherapy. In contrast, tAML risks increased over the last several decades among patients treated with chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), possibly as a result of improvements in survival for patients who received multiple courses of treatment.
Further, Dr. Morton's team identified newly elevated tAML risks for patients treated with chemotherapy since 2000 for esophageal, anal, cervical, and prostate cancers, and since the 1990s for bone/joint and endometrial cancers risks that could potentially be related to expanding use of chemotherapy in recent years. Patients diagnosed with myeloma today still face some of the highest risks for tAML, possibly due to the ongoing use of melphalan to fight the aggressive disease.
The database analysis also found that relative tAML risk for many patients tended to decline with increasing time since initial cancer diagnosis. For those with non-hematologic malignancies, there was no evidence of elevated tAML risks more than 10 years following diagnosis, whereas risks persisted more than 10 years after diagnosis for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), NHL, and myeloma. Heightened tAML risk among these patients could be linked to the higher intensity and longer duration of their treatment.
"Future studies should identify patients at the highest risk of tAML so that the risks can be weighed against the benefits of chemotherapy, particularly for cancers with favorable long-term survival," said Dr. Morton. "Further research is also warranted to assess the risks associated with new targeted and immunomodulatory agents by including secondary malignancies such as tAML as endpoints in prospective clinical studies of new agents or new uses of standard agents."
###
Blood, the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology, is available weekly in print and online. Blood is the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.
ASH's mission is to further the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting blood, bone marrow, and the immunologic, hemostatic, and vascular systems by promoting research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology.
blood is a registered trademark of the American Society of Hematology.
[ | 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.
Risk of leukemia after cancer chemotherapy persistsPublic release date: 14-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Andrea Slesinski aslesinski@hematology.org American Society of Hematology
(WASHINGTON)- While advancements in cancer treatment over the last several decades have improved patient survival rates for certain cancers, some patients remain at risk of developing treatment-related leukemia, according to results of a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).
Chemotherapy is often a highly effective treatment for cancer, but certain drugs have also been shown in a range of studies to increase a patient's risk of developing therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (tAML), a rare but frequently fatal condition. Thanks to significant advancements in therapy resulting in improved patient survival rates for certain cancers over the last several decades, researchers and clinicians now aim to design treatment regimens that maximize patient survival while minimizing short- and long-term complications.
"In the course of improving interventions and survival rates in many types of cancer, we have learned that certain chemotherapies can cause damage to cells in the bone marrow, increasing a patient's risk of leukemia. However, no recent large-scale studies have evaluated how the risk of treatment-related leukemia has evolved with the changing treatment strategies," said Lindsay Morton, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and lead author of the study.
To examine how the risk of tAML has evolved over time among cancer patients treated with chemotherapy, Dr. Morton and a team of researchers at the NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics evaluated data from cancer registries in the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, identifying adult patients ages 20-84 who were diagnosed with cancer (any type) between 1975 and 2008 and who were treated with chemotherapy. SEER data files were reviewed to determine tAML risk based on first type of cancer, time since diagnosis, age at diagnosis, and year of diagnosis.
Among the 426,068 patients whose data were eligible for analysis, Dr. Morton's team confirmed 801cases of tAML, nearly five times more than the number of cases expected in the general population. To help explain the changes in relative risk over time, investigators compared the trends in the data with evolving treatment recommendations and major therapeutic discoveries as described in the medical literature. While patient information in the SEER database did not include data on specific drugs or doses, the incidence trends were consistent with changing treatment practices and the toxicities associated with certain chemotherapies. Notably, the proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy, both with or without radiotherapy, increased during the study period for many malignancies.
As the team compared tAML risks with trends in cancer treatment over time, they analyzed several factors that likely contributed to the differences in risk between patients, including the type of cancer initially diagnosed and the year of diagnosis. For example, trends in risk for breast cancer patients (which comprised roughly one-third of tAML cases in the study) correlated to changes in breast cancer treatment protocols over the last several decades, suggesting that the decrease in tAML risk observed among breast cancer survivors in the 1980s might be attributable to an increased use of cyclophosphamide-based chemotherapy, which is less likely to cause leukemia than earlier treatment options.
A similar decline in risk was observed among ovarian cancer patients, possibly linked to a shift in ovarian cancer chemotherapy treatment in the 1970s from melphalan, a type of chemotherapy that has been shown to trigger leukemia, to a less toxic platinum-based chemotherapy. In contrast, tAML risks increased over the last several decades among patients treated with chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), possibly as a result of improvements in survival for patients who received multiple courses of treatment.
Further, Dr. Morton's team identified newly elevated tAML risks for patients treated with chemotherapy since 2000 for esophageal, anal, cervical, and prostate cancers, and since the 1990s for bone/joint and endometrial cancers risks that could potentially be related to expanding use of chemotherapy in recent years. Patients diagnosed with myeloma today still face some of the highest risks for tAML, possibly due to the ongoing use of melphalan to fight the aggressive disease.
The database analysis also found that relative tAML risk for many patients tended to decline with increasing time since initial cancer diagnosis. For those with non-hematologic malignancies, there was no evidence of elevated tAML risks more than 10 years following diagnosis, whereas risks persisted more than 10 years after diagnosis for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), NHL, and myeloma. Heightened tAML risk among these patients could be linked to the higher intensity and longer duration of their treatment.
"Future studies should identify patients at the highest risk of tAML so that the risks can be weighed against the benefits of chemotherapy, particularly for cancers with favorable long-term survival," said Dr. Morton. "Further research is also warranted to assess the risks associated with new targeted and immunomodulatory agents by including secondary malignancies such as tAML as endpoints in prospective clinical studies of new agents or new uses of standard agents."
###
Blood, the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology, is available weekly in print and online. Blood is the official journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.
ASH's mission is to further the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting blood, bone marrow, and the immunologic, hemostatic, and vascular systems by promoting research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology.
blood is a registered trademark of the American Society of Hematology.
[ | 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.
Last night was the official TC Disrupt Pitch-Off in NYC, where three lucky startups won tickets to the Disrupt NY conference in April, one of which will get a spot on the Startup Alley floor. Over 20 companies competed, and over 800 attendees showed up to partake in the night of beer, pizza, and tech talk. Each pitch-off company was given 60 seconds to pitch their startup without the help of a demo, and then votes from the panel were tabulated alongside an audience choice vote.
Clarksville, TN ? Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan congratulates four individuals from the City of Clarksville?s Finance Department who have recently received certification as Certified Municipal Finance Officers from the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, a program of the University of Tennessee.
Interim Director Debbie Frazier, Jean Adcock, Regina Hampton and Wanda Morrison will graduate on February 22nd, 2013 in a ceremony to be held at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville.
?I am so proud of these women, all of whom provide exemplary service to our employees and residents,? said Mayor McMillan. ?They have worked incredibly hard to receive this certification and it proves their dedication to continue to learn and to doing the best job possible.?
According to MTAS, the Certified Municipal Finance Officer is an 11-course program that includes an exam at the end of each course.? Courses are offered in a sequence beginning with the ?Government Environment.? The program is a valuable resource to gain in-depth knowledge of municipal accounting and finance.
Completion of the entire series takes about 12 months. State law requires each municipality to have in its employ a Certified Municipal Finance Officer by a specified date.? The City of Clarksville now employs five CMFOs including Deborah Johnson who graduated with the inaugural class in 2011.
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Apple should probably get ready for a lawsuit or a settlement agreement in Brazil. Brazil?s patent authority announced on Wednesday that Apple does not own the iPhone name in Brazil. That distinction belongs to a local company called Gradiente SA. While this ruling from the agency doesn't mean that Apple can't use the name for its products in the region, it does mean that Apple may have a court fight on its hands somewhere down the road.
The official verdict only makes it clear the rights belong to the Brazilian company, said Marcelo Chimento, a spokesman with the national patent office. He added that stopping misuse of the name is beyond the patent office?s authority, and that any dispute would have to be decided in court or for the two companies to hash out some sort of agreement. The latter is the likely solution for Apple, because Gradiente SA may have the upper hand when it comes to the Iphone name.
The company filed for use the iPhone name brand in 2000. In 2004 it launched their first smart phone and in 2008 it was awarded the use of the name "iphone." The "iphone" (note the use of the lowercase "p" in the name) is not anything like Apple's device. The line of smart phones cost less than an iPhone, weigh more, have lower screen resolutions, and use Google's Android operating system.
Most believe Apple will simply settle in the wake of this ruling. For now Apple has no comment.
Valentine's Day recipe collection: Main course recipes handbag.com Forget fighting it out at a restaurant this Valentine's Day, stay in and cook instead? Recommend 0. Tweet 0 ? Tweet. 0. Movember Chicken and morel mushrooms recipe. Pop a bottle of fizz, stick that Michael Bubl? CD on the old HiFi and enjoy a night ?
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After shaping DePauw's sustainability efforts as a student, Anthony Baratta chose to stick around.
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Going Back
December 17, 2012
A 1993 Winter Term in Service trip to El Salvador never really ended for Ivan Villasboa. Twenty years later, he hopes a return visit sparks a new tradition...
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Robert Kingsley: A Retrospective 1976-2012
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??Robert Kingsley: A Retrospective 1976-2012? is an exhibit representing a distinguished teaching and painting career of Professor Emeritus of Art and...
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Graduates of the Last Decade Name First GOLD Scholar
November 26, 2012
DePauw's young alumni gave Benjamin J. Roess '14 something new to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. With support from the Graduates of the Last Decade...
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Something (Else) in Common
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Class of 2009 alumni Siobhan Lau, Matt Jennings and Chris Mahnken (center) have different jobs in different cities, but all three are connected by Teach...
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175 years, let the celebration begin! - photos by larry ligget
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 photo, Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell, speaks during his keynote address at Comdex, in Las Vegas. It's easy to forget now, but Michael Dell was the Mark Zuckerberg of his time. Hailed as a young genius, he created the inexpensive, made-to-order personal computer in his dorm room and peddled it to the masses, but now the PC is being eclipsed by smartphones and tablet computers, and Dell is trying to save his company. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, FIle)
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 photo, Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell, speaks during his keynote address at Comdex, in Las Vegas. It's easy to forget now, but Michael Dell was the Mark Zuckerberg of his time. Hailed as a young genius, he created the inexpensive, made-to-order personal computer in his dorm room and peddled it to the masses, but now the PC is being eclipsed by smartphones and tablet computers, and Dell is trying to save his company. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, FIle)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Dell is trying to reassure shareholders about its proposed $24.4 billion acquisition by a group led by its founder, saying it considered a number of strategic options before agreeing to the deal.
Dell Inc. laid out the advantages of the transaction in a regulatory filing Monday, three days after a major shareholder ridiculed the buyout as a rotten deal that undervalues the business.
On Friday, Southeastern Asset Management Inc. sent a letter to Dell's board of directors. Southeastern CEO O. Mason Hawkins threatened to lead a shareholder mutiny unless Dell came up with an alternative acquisition offer.
Hawkins vowed to wield Southeastern's 8.5 percent stake to thwart the deal currently on the table. Only Michael Dell, the computer company's founder and CEO, owns more stock with a roughly 14 percent stake.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell said in its filing that it determined with independent advisers that the cash bid by a group led by Michael Dell was in the best interests of stockholders.
Dell also said the deal allows time for alternate bids do that shareholders will be able to see if there are superior options available.
Southeastern and other stockholders will be paid $13.65 per share to leave the company in control of Michael Dell, who founded the business in his University of Texas dorm room in 1984. Michael Dell is contributing about $4.5 billion in stock and cash to help pay for the deal. The rest of the money would be supplied by the investment firm Silver Lake, loans from Microsoft Corp. and a litany of banks. The loans will burden Dell with debts that could leave the company with less money to invest in innovation and acquisitions.
Dell said Monday that the deal "shifts the risks facing the business to the buyer group."
The proposed $24.4 billion purchase price is 80 percent below Dell's top market value of more than $150 billion at the peak of the dot-com boom 13 years ago. The $13.65 per share offer is 25 percent above where Dell's stock stood last month, before word of the buyout negotiations leaked out in the media. Dell's stock has plunged during the past year as PC sales have slumped amid the technological upheaval caused by the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers.
Dell shares closed up 7 cents at $13.70 on Monday.
Though not technically a wood-burning stove, campfires have been keeping us warm and cooking our food for thousands of years?perhaps even millions.
Archaeologists at South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave recently discovered what could be the earliest evidence of a controlled fire, dating back a million years. However, there are no signs that the cave's resident hominids built a fire pit or a hearth. For that, scientists point to the 750,000-year-old Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in Israel, where clusters of burned grain, bones, seed, and wood suggest humans made fires in specific spots?perhaps using hearths.
Nowadays we mostly use campfires in extreme cases of survival or simply just for fun. Backyard chimineas and fire pits have enjoyed a recent surge in popularity, though they provide little usable heat, are smoky, and are rarely used for cooking.
I'm heading out to India (Bangalore and Delhi) to meet with tech companies. We haven't had time to put together a formal event, but I do want to meet startups, VCs and entrepreneurs, so to that end I'll be throwing together a Meetup - probably in a bar - in Bangalore on Tuesday. The details are:
A couple walks through Boston Common in Boston, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. The Boston area received about two feet of snow from a winter storm. A howling storm across the Northeast left the New York-to-Boston corridor shrouded in 1 to 3 feet of snow Saturday, stranding motorists on highways overnight and piling up drifts so high that some homeowners couldn't get their doors open. More than 650,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
A couple walks through Boston Common in Boston, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. The Boston area received about two feet of snow from a winter storm. A howling storm across the Northeast left the New York-to-Boston corridor shrouded in 1 to 3 feet of snow Saturday, stranding motorists on highways overnight and piling up drifts so high that some homeowners couldn't get their doors open. More than 650,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Grounds crews clear the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Airlines scratched more than 3,700 flights in the Northeast through Saturday as snow began falling in what was predicted to be a huge blizzard that could dump 1 to 3 feet of snow from New York City to Boston and beyond. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
BOSTON (AP) ? The Tampa Bay Lightning were already in Boston when the blizzard shut down the roads, trains and airports. The Bruins and all of the game officials were standing by, too.
But with a state of emergency still in effect through most of Massachusetts, public transportation shut down and the roads closed by a storm that dumped as much as a yard of snow on some areas, the NHL decided to postpone Saturday's game between the Lightning and the Bruins.
No makeup date had been scheduled, a process made more difficult by the lack of off-days in the compressed 48-game schedule that resulted from the lockout.
Several other professional teams were forced to rearrange their travel plans because of the storm, which stranded the Knicks in Minnesota and the Spurs in Detroit on Friday night. New York's airports reopened on Saturday, but Boston's Logan Airport remained closed into Saturday night as airlines canceled more than 5,300 flights.
The Knicks, who played the Timberwolves on Friday night, returned to New York on Saturday for their Sunday matinee against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Spurs, who ended their 11-game winning streak against the Pistons, play the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night.
The Nets took a train home instead of flying from Washington after losing to the Wizards on Friday night, posting a photo of the players boarding a train with the caption, "Backup plan." The Clippers arrived in New York as scheduled on Saturday.
At least five deaths were blamed on the storm, which dumped as much as 3 feet of snow in some parts of New England. More than 650,000 homes and businesses lost power, with some not expecting electricity to be restored for days. Wind gusts of over 80 mph were recorded.
By midday Saturday, the National Weather Service reported preliminary snowfall totals of 24.9 inches in Boston, short of the 27.1 inches that fell in the Blizzard of '78 that left hundreds attending the Beanpot college hockey tournament stuck at the old Boston Garden for days.
The Bruins said Saturday's game would be rescheduled as soon as a makeup date could be confirmed. The process is complicated because the Bruins share a building with the NBA's Celtics.
The Bruins and Lightning each already had road games scheduled for Sunday night.
Other games in the Northeast went on as scheduled.
A sellout crowd of 17,625 attended the Pittsburgh Penguins' game in New Jersey game less than 24 hours after a storm dropped more than a foot of snow in the area. The New York Islanders were slated to play at home against the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m.
Two Ivy League men's college basketball games that had been scheduled for Saturday night were moved back to Sunday because of treacherous travel conditions. Dartmouth will play at Cornell at noon on Sunday in Ithaca, N.Y., and Harvard will visit Columbia at 2 p.m. Sunday in New York.
Aqueduct also called off Saturday's card because of the storm. The track and Belmont Park were expected to remain open for wagering on out-of-town races, with racing scheduled to resume Sunday. Harness racing was canceled at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey.
By William L. Watts and Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) ? The yen climbed sharply versus the dollar and euro Friday after Japan?s finance minister said the currency?s fall had caught the government by surprise ? a remark the ministry later described as a misstatement.
The dollar /quotes/zigman/4868099/sampledUSDJPY-0.9940%
traded at 92.75 yen in recent action, down from ?93.41 in North American trade late Thursday. The dollar had bought as much as ?93.70 early Friday. For the week, the greenback is little changed versus the yen.
The euro /quotes/zigman/4868097/sampledEURJPY-1.2491%
fetched ?123.93, down from around ?125.32. For the week, the euro has lost more than 2% versus the yen.
Week ahead: Currency wars at G-20
Currency wars are likely to dominate the G-20 meeting in Moscow even if most countries will try not to make any explicit accusations. .
On Friday, during a parliamentary session, Japan Financial Minister Taro Aso said the dollar had ?abruptly risen to the ?90 level from the previous ?78-?79 level in a manner we didn?t anticipate.?
Later, however, a finance ministry official said Aso had meant to say the yen?s drop had been ?fast paced? rather than unexpected.
See: Japan: Aso meant to say yen's fall 'fast-paced'
.
Combined with indications Japanese exporters are starting to re-emerge as yen sellers, Aso?s comments were ?sufficient to drive a stop run down to a low of ?92.17 before a partial retracement,? said Adam Cole, currency strategist at RBC Capital in London.
/conga/story/2013/02/rotation.html248995
Aso?s remarks certainly don?t imply the yen?s fall is unwelcome, ?but does call into question the ?95-100 range [versus the dollar] that many were beginning to talk of? as a government objective, Cole said.
Taking a look at the bigger picture, seasonals are ?in favor of yen strength,? with March representing the end of Japan?s fiscal year, and the yen typically strengthening from mid-February through late-April,? said Christopher Vecchio, currency analyst at DailyFX, in an emailed note.
Given that, ?we very-well may be on the verge of the next bout of risk-aversion if political concerns stemming from Italy and Spain boil over,? he said. ?A drop back to ?120 in EURJPY can?t be ruled out at [the] present time.?
Euro falls vs. dollar
The euro, meanwhile, moved lower against the dollar.
European leaders reached an agreement Friday on a seven-year budget plan for the European Union, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced on Twitter without providing details after a final set of negotiations that stretched to around 24 hours.
See: European leaders agree on 7-year EU budget deal.
?The EU budget deal, which confirms the EU?s appetite for austerity, provides continued support for the euro bears to bet against the euro based on a weak growth outlook,? said Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. ?But the market already understands this, so it looks like the budget conversation is a small catalyst in the same general direction.?
The euro had taken a tumble Thursday after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policy makers would watch the currency?s appreciation for any sign it is affecting the euro-zone inflation outlook. Draghi also said the euro?s recent rise is a sign of confidence in the shared currency.
He emphasized repeatedly that the ECB was maintaining an ?accommodative? monetary policy.
Read Draghi: Euro reflects confidence, but eyeing rise.
The euro /quotes/zigman/4867933/sampledEURUSD-0.2686%
, which pushed above $1.37 earlier this week, changed hands at $1.3365 in recent trade, down from $1.3392 in late North American action Thursday. For the week, its down about 2%.
Although down about 2% just this week, the currency is still up nearly 4.9% against the greenback compared with three months ago.
ECB's Draghi knocks euro back a bit
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi helped the euro to reverse some of its recent gains with slightly more dovish comments at his monthly news conference.
?What we note is that the latest data shows the euro-zone is stabilizing. More work is needed, however,? said Evan Lucas, a market strategist at IG Markets.
?Mario Draghi?s ?whatever it takes? comments that came [at midyear] last year was the flash point for the current rally and he is holding true to his word, meaning Europe is going to be a distraction, not a disaster,? Lucas said.
The ICE dollar index /quotes/zigman/1652083DXY-0.02%
, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major global currencies, rose to 80.234 from around 79.721 late in New York on Thursday. The index was about 1.4% higher for the week.
The WSJ dollar index /quotes/zigman/9625991XX:BUXX-0.21%
, a gauge that measures the greenback?s moves against a slightly wider basket of currencies, slipped to 71.53 from 71.66 Thursday.
Among other major currency pairs, the British pound /quotes/zigman/4867886/sampledGBPUSD+0.5416%
climbed to $1.5794 from $1.5696, while the Australian dollar /quotes/zigman/4867876/sampledAUDUSD+0.3414%
fetched $1.0317, compared with $1.0284.
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William L. Watts is MarketWatch's European bureau chief, based in Frankfurt. Follow him on Twitter @wlwatts.Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @MktwSaefong. V. Phani Kumar contributed to this report.
There is a new wireless dock in tow, which is known as the Dell Wireless Dock that is touted by Dell (of course) to deliver best-in-class untethered docking experience alongside the Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook for speedy, flexible connectivity between devices and peripherals. The WiGig standard is being championed by Dell and Wilocity, where it ushers in a new age of mainstream wireless connectivity by boasting speeds of up to 10 times faster compared to normal Wi-Fi, not to mention being able to transmit high quality video streams without missing a beat. 
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Public release date: 14-Feb-2013
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Last night was the official 
Clarksville, TN ? Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan congratulates four individuals from the City of Clarksville?s Finance Department who have recently received certification as Certified Municipal Finance Officers from the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, a program of the University of Tennessee.
I'm heading out to India (Bangalore and Delhi) to meet with tech companies. We haven't had time to put together a formal event, but I do want to meet startups, VCs and entrepreneurs, so to that end I'll be throwing together a Meetup - probably in a bar - in Bangalore on Tuesday. The details are:
