Web Development Live

Chief has adopted a new mount configurator on its site. As a complement to the MountFinder database, which links flat-panel and projectors with compatible mounts, MountBuilder helps visitors, mainly custom integrators, virtually build a set-up using the proper equipment.

MountBuilder automatically calculates things like weight capacity and drop distance as parts are added to a system. Integrators can create a log-in name and password, then save a configuration, and go back and edit parts or quantities at any time as the job changes. Once a configuration is completed, installers can create a PDF with a virtual image to include with a proposal, along with Chief’s Easy Bid Spec Form.

“We are often told by customers that we offer so many mount accessories and applications that it’s hard to know which accessories to choose for each application,” explained Laurie Englert, Director of Marketing at Chief Manufacturing. “With the goal of making this easier for the customer, the team went to work and came up with this incredible concept. We’ve shown it to customers and they are thrilled to get a visual tool of the many different options.”

The City Council set a public hearing for June 2 to discuss the proposed changes to the Land Development Code. The code has combined and reformatted multiple land development standards to ensure consistency.

The proposed code also includes an update of sign regulations and preparation of gateway design standards.

Council members spoke Monday about the impact the code could have on the community. Council member John Pederson said many of the proposed changes will require commercial buildings to look dramatically different from how many look today.

He used the Barnes & Noble building at the corner of Division Street and Minnesota Highway 15 as an example of the landscaping and other elements that could be expected citywide. Other elements will be required in the city entry points only.

“I think that’s what our residents need to know and understand. That’s where the land development code is going,” Pederson said. “This Land Development Code is going to have a far-reaching affect on your community.”

The council had a public hearing on the issue last November, but the issue was tabled so members could take a closer look at it.

Since then the council has met multiple times to go over it and discuss specific proposals.

OSU’s Technology Business Assessment Group will fund four faculty research projects for spring 2008. The group identified these one-year projects from a number of excellent proposals submitted in response to a solicitation earlier this spring. Funding for the program is administered by the OSU Office of Intellectual Property Management, and is generated by royalties from OSU-licensed technologies. These funded projects show a significant probability of having commercial success.

“We are pleased that the OIPM royalty stream allowed us to hold yet another competition for the spring of 2008,” Steve Price, director of OIPM, said. “It’s exciting to be able to continue the trend of developing OSU research into viable commercial products.”

Created in 2005, TBAG funds projects in need of feasibility demonstration and/or prototype development for commercialization purposes. The group is comprised of private sector partners experienced in new product identification and new technology evaluation, representation from i2E, early-stage capital investors, bankers, representation from Meridian Technology Center for Business Development, the OSU Center for Innovation and Economic Development, the OSU Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, the OSU Associate Vice President for Technology Development and OSU-Okmulgee.

Developers eyeing construction projects in the 2nd Ward will now contend with a new group connected to the Web Development alderman that will consider and critique projects before they are submitted to the broader community.

The Citizen Advisory Committee was formed by the office of 2nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti to vet development proposals, said Hannah Jubeh, Fioretti’s campaign manager during his election.

“They basically review the project, they make recommendations, they say their kind of notes or feedback to the alderman, what they think works, what doesn’t work, what might work better,” Jubeh said of the Web Development committee. “The alderman will take those suggestions and make changes accordingly as part of the overall plan.”

Development was a major issue during last year’s aldermanic primary and runoff election, with former 2nd Ward alderman Madeline Haithcock perceived by some residents as nonresponsive to concerns about the impact of seemingly constant new building projects. Jubeh said under the “previous administration, there was no process at all.”

“These developers are not used to how the process works now, based on what they were used to it in the past. I heard that a lot-how does the process work?” Jubeh said. “We have to bring them in and reeducate them on how the process is going to work.”

The Citizen Advisory Committee has been up and running for a couple of months, Jubeh said. It has 18 members, from four different sub-areas in the ward: the south end, the west end, the Web Development central business district and the Taylor Street/medical district area.

The alderman’s office created the committee by emailing their 4,000-address email database, asking for participation. Forty people responded. Staff divided those 40 into geographic areas and held a lottery to determine who would join the committee. The committee meets as a whole and also can address specific projects in its sub-area.

The email list included Fioretti campaign contributors, people who signed up for information about the campaign through its Web site and Web Development people who have given their email address to the alderman at one of his community meetings, Jubeh said.

Jubeh, who now works as director of political affairs for the Chicago Federation of Labor, spent nine years advising 10th Ward Alderman John Pope on economic development. She said she continues to work with Alderman Fioretti as an unpaid volunteer.

New development projects do not go directly to the CAC. Jubeh and Alderman Fioretti first look at them before sending them to the group. Established community organizations also can weigh in on the Web Development proposal before the CAC contributes. A developer must also complete a development application before meeting with the alderman. But Jubeh said the group will play a key component in “smart planning” for the ward.

“If you go to a community meeting and you haven’t vetted the project per se with residents who live in that specific area, your process is going to be lengthier, and where do you go from there?” she said.

One longtime South Loop resident and development observer said he had not heard the CAC was staffed.

Dennis McClendon said he didn’t think many people know how the CAC was working. He also said Fioretti needs to better inform the Web Development community about projects.

“A bunch of projects have gotten pulled from agendas at the last minute, things like Congress Hotel and the Avalon Bay project,” McClendon said. “It’s not really clear what the process is for showing those to the community. Occasionally, we have these meetings but they’re convened at the last minute. Avalon Bay was done that way.”

Still, McClendon said Fioretti is making development decisions based on “more rational bases and much more understanding of the subject.”

McClendon said the committee is a good idea in the abstract but it must avoid being dominated by any one personality or view.

“I don’t think the alderman should consider himself bound by its recommendations because often what the good of the city may not be may not immediately please residents around the site,” McClendon said.

The CAC is exploring setting monthly meetings and using the Web Development alderman’s Web site to communicate about upcoming projects.

Big-D Construction, a Salt Lake City-based construction management company, named Gifford Briggs project development manager of its Lindon office. Briggs will oversee all marketing and project proposals, management of project pre-construction, and will be involved in all other aspects of business development.

Briggs, who holds a bachelor’s degree in construction management with a minor in business management from Brigham Young University, has worked in many different areas of the construction industry for the past 10 years — five of which have been at Big-D. He had served in the commercial construction sector as a project engineer, estimator, marketing manager, senior project manager and project development manager.

SLC advertising firm adds two workers — Love Communications, a Salt Lake City-based advertising agency, added two employees to its interactive services division. Jared McPherson was hired as its motion graphics designer and Mike Dodge, its Web developer.

McPherson will specialize in developing Web sites, banners and CD interfaces in media campaigns as well as in front-end Web development. Before joining Love Communications, McPherson was a motion graphics designer for McCann-Erickson. Dodge will be responsible for Web and IT solutions for the agency’s clients. Before joining the agency, Dodge was the Web developer for Clear Link Technologies, where he built Web application servers and managed highly sensitive and complex information relating to upcoming company projects. Prior to that, Dodge taught Web development at Brigham Young University.

BYU’s Romney Institute honors humanitarian — Carolyn Grow Dailey, president and CEO of Ascend Alliance, a Holladay-based humanitarian group, was named 2008 Administrator of the Year by Brigham Young University’s Romney Institute of Public Management. The award is given annually to an individual who has achieved distinction after many years of management in the public or nonprofit sector.

In her 17 years as an international humanitarian executive, Dailey has organized community development programs and leading internships. As president and CEO of Ascend, Dailey helps combat poverty in developing countries by implementing programs in education, enterprise, health and technology. She has previously served as CEO of Choice Humanitarian.

WESTON, Colo. A hamlet near here of wooded gulches, rocky outcrops and views of the snowy tops of southern Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo mountains is the perfect escape for retirees and telecommuters who’ve settled in.But people who bought lots on the 4,000-acre North Fork Ranch about 200 miles south of Denver, hoping to leave behind big-city hassles, worry when they flip on a switch or take a drink of water. They’re afraid that volatile methane gas from drilling in the area’s coal seams could seep into their water wells or migrate inside their homes.That’s no idle fear. A house under construction near the subdivision exploded last April when methane gas leaked from an abandoned well and into the building. Two water wells in the subdivision were damaged in 2006 during gas drilling.Pioneer Natural Resources, a Dallas-based energy company, drilled new water wells, provided a filtration system and settled for an undisclosed amount with one family. The company, which contends it’s unclear whether it caused the problems, hasn’t settled with the other family.”You don’t know day to day when you turn on your faucet whether you’re going to have good, clean water or whether there’s going to be chemicals in there that you’re unaware of,” said Tracy Dahl, a design engineer who built a home atop a mountain on North Fork in 1995.Higher natural gas prices and the push for domestic energy development have made the Rockies’ unconventional sources more economical. That’s created conflicts with the area’s growing population, most of which lives on a split estate: when one party owns the land and another owns the minerals underneath.The split occurred across the West as the federal government granted homesteads but retained the mineral rights, or when people sold the land but kept the minerals. Federal and state laws give mineral owners or leaseholders the right to reasonable use of the surface to extract the minerals.Most of the gas drilled in the Raton Basin, which includes the ranch, is from coal-bed methane - gas trapped in coal seams that once provided a thriving coal-mining industry. Roughly 2,600 coal-bed methane wells have been drilled.Methane gas was a liability in coal mining because of its volatility, but then companies started tapping it as a fuel source. Pumping groundwater relieves the pressure that traps the gas, raising concerns among landowners about the effects on the water table and drinking water wells.The Raton Basin is one of the hot spots of an energy boom rippling throughout the Rockies. There are roughly 34,000 active wells across Colorado and tens of thousands more are expected over the next 20 years.Warren McDonald, who ranches west of North Fork, has a good relationship with Pioneer Natural Resources.”Typically, the people having the problems moved from cities and towns. They think they’re going to go up to the wilderness and live in harmony with nature, but those days are kind of gone,” said McDonald, whose family has ranched in the area since 1890.McDonald said energy development is a big boost for ranchers and farmers like him who own some minerals because they get royalty payments. Jobs, business and tax revenue are all up.”It’s night and day from when the coal mines shut down in the ’90s,” McDonald said.”I saw the downside when the coal mines closed,” said Glenn Moltrer, a businessman who heads the local chamber of commerce. “People actually put dummies in the windows of stores (in Trinidad) to make it look like something was there besides vacant storefronts.”On River Ridge Ranch, a rural subdivision near Walsenburg about 40 miles north, the state has halted gas production so the operator, Petroglyph Energy of Boise, Idaho, can figure out how methane is getting into water wells and how to stop it.A small fire erupted when a spark from an electrical switch ignited built-up methane at a water well on the ranch last summer. Around the same time, an explosion raised the roof on a shed over a water well near the subdivision.Petroglyph Energy provided homeowners devices to monitor whether their wellheads are venting methane. Petroglyph Chief Operating Officer Ken Smith said the company is monitoring groundwater and has seen nothing to indicate that people are in danger.Bruce Hopke’s home sports a view of hills covered in pinon pines rolling west for miles, slamming up against the snow-creased Spanish Peaks. Plans for about 50 wells have been approved on the 5,600-acre River Ranch site, but not all drilling permits have been issued.”I would love to see them fix it, I really would,” Hopke said of Petroglyph’s plan to block seeping methane. “If they fix it, nothing has changed, everything’s fine. You can have a cup of coffee and turn on a light switch - the small pleasures.”If it doesn’t fix it, then it’s a heckuva problem,” said Hopke, a retiree.Interest in the area by another gas company prompted Huerfano County to consider a drilling moratorium so it can study its rights and responsibilities, said John Galusha, county administrator.Dahl and Marcia Dasko, both members of the North Fork Ranch landowners’ association, acknowledged the strong support for the industry because of jobs. They said a hearing in neighboring Trinidad on strengthening state oil and gas regulations drew hundreds of energy workers and officials, many of whom criticized the proposals.”It doesn’t have to be done with a gold-rush mentality,” Dahl said. “Everybody knows about energy boom and bust cycles and yet everybody here seems to be turning a blind eye to it.”Dahl and Dasko noted that a recent state study estimated that drilling in the Raton Basin depletes area water by about 2,500 acre feet a year.That amounts to roughly 815 million gallons of water that aren’t returned to streams and rivers, a volume called “significant” by Matt Sares, deputy director of the Colorado Geological Survey. He said the current total is likely quite a bit lower because of the wells temporarily shut down on River Ridge Ranch. Those wells produce more water than ones farther south.Some of the water pumped out is reinjected. Some flows into streams or is used for irrigation or livestock if it meets state standards.Besides concerns about water, Dahl and Dasko said they wonder what happens to the land after wells are drilled, waste pits are dug and roads are carved out of hillsides.On a recent tour of North Fork Ranch, sections of small fences to prevent sediment from flowing into streams were lying flat in the mud.A March 11 report on the Web site of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the main regulatory agency, said an inspection found “numerous sediment and erosion problems.” It said Pioneer agreed to make repairs and improvements.At home, Dasko plopped two big binders on a table. The binders were packed with photos of alleged violations, correspondence with Pioneer and other documents. She said landowners have taken water samples and charted the fate of area wetlands and streams.”We went into this whole thing very proactive, fairly organized. We hired the best lawyers we possibly could,” Dahl said of the landowners’ agreement with Pioneer for use of the surface. “Most folks are not doing these kinds of things and it’s ridiculous to expect a citizen to have to.”

WASHINGTON It’s a Herculean task: revamping a financial regulatory system dating back to the Civil War to deal with 21st century crises imperiling the country.Under an ambitious Bush administration plan, the Federal Reserve would take on the unwieldy role of uber cop in charge of financial market stability. Other regulatory agencies could see their influence diminished.The proposal won’t fix the host of economic and financial problems that threatens to plunge the United States into a deep recession, but it might help guard against future troubles. It would take years and a lot of political wrangling - in Congress, on Wall Street, in statehouses and elsewhere - to implement all the changes envisioned.Yet, the initiative, formally announced Monday, casts a fresh spotlight on the best way to protect the country from financial catastrophes in an intricate web of complex, often-changing financial products and the wide array of financial players using them in the United States and beyond. That debate probably will take center stage in the next president’s administration.—Stocks gain on last day of quarterNEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street managed a moderate gain in the final session of a dismal first quarter Monday, but stock prices and the major indexes still ended the first three months of 2007 with massive losses, the casualties of the still continuing credit crisis. The Standard %26 Poor’s 500 index, the benchmark for many widely held investments such as mutual funds, suffered a loss for the quarter of nearly 10 percent.The blip upward came from a better than expected reading in the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, which is considered a precursor to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey on Tuesday. The index rose to 48.2 in March from 44.5 a month earlier; economists had been expecting a reading of 47.3, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Though the number topped forecasts, a figure below 50 nonetheless indicates a contraction in manufacturing activity.The market’s reaction, however, was likely not as enthusiastic as it might seem from Monday’s gains by the major indexes. Price movements tend to be skewed when volume is as light as it was Monday.It was a difficult quarter on Wall Street, with financial companies’ ongoing credit market losses and the flagging economy wiping out many investors’ appetite for stocks. While the market saw a number of up days during the quarter, the overall trend was sharply lower, with reports of asset write-downs and shaky financial companies pummeling the market - in particular, the near-collapse of Bear Stearns %26 Cos. in mid-March.—Pernod Ricard buys maker of AbsolutSTOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Spirits group Pernod Ricard SA is adding Swedish flavor to a liquor cabinet stacked with Scotch whisky, French champagne and Cuban rum with its $8.34 billion purchase of the state-owned maker of Absolut vodka.The company said Monday it was delighted to add the premium vodka brand to its assortment of drinks, after the Swedish government accepted its bid for Absolut’s parent company, Vin %26 Sprit.The Swedish government celebrated the higher-than-expected price tag for Vin %26 Sprit, but investors were less exuberant, sending shares in France-based Pernod Ricard down 4.3 percent to $103.03 in Paris.Sweden said it selected the Pernod Ricard bid on Sunday over three other offers, by U.S.-based Fortune Brands Inc., Bermuda-based Bacardi Ltd. and an investment group controlled by Sweden’s Wallenberg family.—Less corn could mean higher food pricesWASHINGTON (AP) - From chicken nuggets to corn flakes, food prices at grocery stores and dinner tables could be headed even higher as farmers cut back on the land they’re planting in corn this spring.Corn prices already are high, and a drop in supply should keep them rising. Combine that with the huge demand for corn-based ethanol fuel - and higher energy costs for transporting food - and consumers are likely to see their food bills going up and up.Farmers are now expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the Department of Agriculture predicted Monday, down 8 percent from last year, which was the highest since World War II.Corn is almost everywhere you look in the U.S. food supply. Poultry, beef and pork companies use it to feed their animals. High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks and many other foods, including lunch meats and salad dressings. Corn is often an ingredient in breads, peanut butter, oatmeal and potato chips.—Merck, Schering-Plough sink on VytorinNEW YORK (AP) - Shares of Merck %26 Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. fell to record lows Monday, as analysts warned new clinical data would cause sales of their blockbuster cholesterol drug Vytorin to fall further.The companies market Vytorin through a joint venture, but earlier this year, partial results from a clinical study showed that it was no more effective at limiting plaque buildup than Merck’s Zocor, a drug that is already available in generic form. Full results of that study were released Sunday.Vytorin is a combination of Zocor and Schering-Plough’s drug Zetia.Schering-Plough shares plunged as low as $14, touching their lowest levels since August 1996. Merck shares fell as low as $36.82, their lowest since June 2006.Leading physicians are now recommending the use of older drugs called statins before putting patients on Vytorin. Many physicians had prescribed Vytorin in lieu of higher doses of statins because of what some said was an undue fear of side effects.— HUD chief resigns amid criminal probeWASHINGTON (AP) - HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.The move comes at a shaky time for the economy when soaring mortgage foreclosures imperil the nation’s credit markets.Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for Jackson to leave.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.—Oil prices slide, retail gas hits recordNEW YORK (AP) - Prices surged at the gas pump, hitting a new record Monday even as crude oil accelerated its slide amid a broad-based commodities sell-off.The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded rose to $3.287, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices were highest in Hawaii and California, where the average price topped $3.60 a gallon.Gasoline prices are expected to keep rising as the summer driving season brings with it greater demand for the fuel. Last year, prices peaked in May before backtracking; with gasoline already at a record it will like only continue its advance.If crude oil prices, which set records of their own during March continue their advance, that will also add to the cost of gasoline at the pump.On Monday, however, light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.—Citi splits consumer banking, card unitsNEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup named a veteran retail banker Monday to head its North American consumer banking unit, splitting it off from its credit-card business as Citi struggles to become profitable again after suffering its biggest quarterly loss in its 196-year history.The latest move is the biggest sign yet that CEO Vikram Pandit, appointed in December, wants to fix Citi’s major parts rather than sell them off to raise cash - at least for now.It also shows what steps Pandit would take to attract more consumers to Citi’s retail banking unit.Citi’s worst problems are in its investment banking segment, which made huge losing bets on the mortgage industry. But its bread-and-butter business of lending to and collecting deposits from average people has also been underwhelming shareholders.Citi is ubiquitous throughout the United States, but in recent years has lost customers to rival banks such as JPMorgan Chase %26 Co. and Wachovia Corp.—Major indexes rise, commodities slip as quarter endsOn the last day of the quarter, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 46.49, or 0.38 percent, to 12,262.89.Broader stock indicators also rose. The S%26P 500 index advanced 7.48, or 0.57 percent, to 1,322.70, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 17.92, or 0.79 percent, to 2,279.10.Light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 5.58 cents to settle at $3.0492 a gallon, while gasoline futures sank 10.07 cents to settle at $2.6163 a gallon. Brent crude futures fell $3.47 to settle at $100.30 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Socrates is a central database for the 15 Health Ministry-funded Needs Assessment and Service Co- ordination organisations (Nascs), which assess needs and allocate services for the disabled.
The system, which went live late last year, is designed to collect and store information from Nascs and send payment information to HealthPAC, which processes payments for the ministry.
Craig Hutchison, director of Christchurch Nasc Lifelinks, says staff are pleased the system was developed because they can see long-term benefits, but there are many teething issues.
If there is heavy demand, it can take a long time to enter data and staff are sometimes logged off as a result. If an error is made, perhaps with a clients service level allocation, it is a very long-winded, frustrating process to remedy it.
Mr Hutchison says Lifelinks spent $23,900 to implement Socrates and the ministry hasnt responed to reimbursement requests. Lifelinks previously used its own system, which it developed with software developer Global Office.
Global Office managing director Chris Tacon says Lifelinks system, NascOnline, was reviewed by the ministry along with other Nasc systems before it went to tender for a national system.
Feedback was that our system was vastly superior and covered 90 per cent of requirements and exceeded them in some areas.
But NascOnline was not short- listed for the tender and Global Office, which has seven staff, was told it did not have the infrastructure to develop the product.
Mr Tacon says Simpl, the company that won the contract, had to learn the whole business process for Nascs from scratch.
We offered the ministry a copy of our system, including the source code, and access to one of our developers for a couple of weeks %26ndash; everything they needed to give them a headstart.
But he says Global Office and the ministry could not agree on a sum for these services. We were down to $125,000, they offered $20,000. We found that offer insulting, to be honest. NascOnline cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop, but could have been implemented for much less than the cost of Socrates.
Health Ministry business support manager David Chrisp says Socrates suffered a number of implementation problems but these have largely been addressed.
The biggest issue was the response time of the system, which is web-based. This has been addressed by buying more bandwidth.
He says there was a short-term increase in payment errors immediately after the implementation of Socrates.
Mr Chrisp says Global Office did not submit a formal proposal and the ministry was of the view that NascOnline would have met fewer than 90 per cent of the requirements.
National Party disability issues spokesman Paul Hutchison, who has questioned Health Minister David Cunliffe about Socrates, says the impression he had was it wasnt working that well at all.

WASHINGTON It’s a Herculean task: revamping a financial regulatory system dating back to the Civil War to deal with 21st century crises imperiling the country.Under an ambitious Bush administration plan, the Federal Reserve would take on the unwieldy role of uber cop in charge of financial market stability. Other regulatory agencies could see their influence diminished.The proposal won’t fix the host of economic and financial problems that threatens to plunge the United States into a deep recession, but it might help guard against future troubles. It would take years and a lot of political wrangling - in Congress, on Wall Street, in statehouses and elsewhere - to implement all the changes envisioned.Yet, the initiative, formally announced Monday, casts a fresh spotlight on the best way to protect the country from financial catastrophes in an intricate web of complex, often-changing financial products and the wide array of financial players using them in the United States and beyond. That debate probably will take center stage in the next president’s administration.—Stocks gain on last day of quarterNEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street managed a moderate gain in the final session of a dismal first quarter Monday, but stock prices and the major indexes still ended the first three months of 2007 with massive losses, the casualties of the still continuing credit crisis. The Standard %26 Poor’s 500 index, the benchmark for many widely held investments such as mutual funds, suffered a loss for the quarter of nearly 10 percent.The blip upward came from a better than expected reading in the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, which is considered a precursor to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey on Tuesday. The index rose to 48.2 in March from 44.5 a month earlier; economists had been expecting a reading of 47.3, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Though the number topped forecasts, a figure below 50 nonetheless indicates a contraction in manufacturing activity.The market’s reaction, however, was likely not as enthusiastic as it might seem from Monday’s gains by the major indexes. Price movements tend to be skewed when volume is as light as it was Monday.It was a difficult quarter on Wall Street, with financial companies’ ongoing credit market losses and the flagging economy wiping out many investors’ appetite for stocks. While the market saw a number of up days during the quarter, the overall trend was sharply lower, with reports of asset write-downs and shaky financial companies pummeling the market - in particular, the near-collapse of Bear Stearns %26 Cos. in mid-March.—Pernod Ricard buys maker of AbsolutSTOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Spirits group Pernod Ricard SA is adding Swedish flavor to a liquor cabinet stacked with Scotch whisky, French champagne and Cuban rum with its $8.34 billion purchase of the state-owned maker of Absolut vodka.The company said Monday it was delighted to add the premium vodka brand to its assortment of drinks, after the Swedish government accepted its bid for Absolut’s parent company, Vin %26 Sprit.The Swedish government celebrated the higher-than-expected price tag for Vin %26 Sprit, but investors were less exuberant, sending shares in France-based Pernod Ricard down 4.3 percent to $103.03 in Paris.Sweden said it selected the Pernod Ricard bid on Sunday over three other offers, by U.S.-based Fortune Brands Inc., Bermuda-based Bacardi Ltd. and an investment group controlled by Sweden’s Wallenberg family.—Less corn could mean higher food pricesWASHINGTON (AP) - From chicken nuggets to corn flakes, food prices at grocery stores and dinner tables could be headed even higher as farmers cut back on the land they’re planting in corn this spring.Corn prices already are high, and a drop in supply should keep them rising. Combine that with the huge demand for corn-based ethanol fuel - and higher energy costs for transporting food - and consumers are likely to see their food bills going up and up.Farmers are now expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the Department of Agriculture predicted Monday, down 8 percent from last year, which was the highest since World War II.Corn is almost everywhere you look in the U.S. food supply. Poultry, beef and pork companies use it to feed their animals. High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks and many other foods, including lunch meats and salad dressings. Corn is often an ingredient in breads, peanut butter, oatmeal and potato chips.—Merck, Schering-Plough sink on VytorinNEW YORK (AP) - Shares of Merck %26 Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. fell to record lows Monday, as analysts warned new clinical data would cause sales of their blockbuster cholesterol drug Vytorin to fall further.The companies market Vytorin through a joint venture, but earlier this year, partial results from a clinical study showed that it was no more effective at limiting plaque buildup than Merck’s Zocor, a drug that is already available in generic form. Full results of that study were released Sunday.Vytorin is a combination of Zocor and Schering-Plough’s drug Zetia.Schering-Plough shares plunged as low as $14, touching their lowest levels since August 1996. Merck shares fell as low as $36.82, their lowest since June 2006.Leading physicians are now recommending the use of older drugs called statins before putting patients on Vytorin. Many physicians had prescribed Vytorin in lieu of higher doses of statins because of what some said was an undue fear of side effects.— HUD chief resigns amid criminal probeWASHINGTON (AP) - HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.The move comes at a shaky time for the economy when soaring mortgage foreclosures imperil the nation’s credit markets.Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for Jackson to leave.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.—Oil prices slide, retail gas hits recordNEW YORK (AP) - Prices surged at the gas pump, hitting a new record Monday even as crude oil accelerated its slide amid a broad-based commodities sell-off.The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded rose to $3.287, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices were highest in Hawaii and California, where the average price topped $3.60 a gallon.Gasoline prices are expected to keep rising as the summer driving season brings with it greater demand for the fuel. Last year, prices peaked in May before backtracking; with gasoline already at a record it will like only continue its advance.If crude oil prices, which set records of their own during March continue their advance, that will also add to the cost of gasoline at the pump.On Monday, however, light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.—Citi splits consumer banking, card unitsNEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup named a veteran retail banker Monday to head its North American consumer banking unit, splitting it off from its credit-card business as Citi struggles to become profitable again after suffering its biggest quarterly loss in its 196-year history.The latest move is the biggest sign yet that CEO Vikram Pandit, appointed in December, wants to fix Citi’s major parts rather than sell them off to raise cash - at least for now.It also shows what steps Pandit would take to attract more consumers to Citi’s retail banking unit.Citi’s worst problems are in its investment banking segment, which made huge losing bets on the mortgage industry. But its bread-and-butter business of lending to and collecting deposits from average people has also been underwhelming shareholders.Citi is ubiquitous throughout the United States, but in recent years has lost customers to rival banks such as JPMorgan Chase %26 Co. and Wachovia Corp.—Major indexes rise, commodities slip as quarter endsOn the last day of the quarter, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 46.49, or 0.38 percent, to 12,262.89.Broader stock indicators also rose. The S%26P 500 index advanced 7.48, or 0.57 percent, to 1,322.70, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 17.92, or 0.79 percent, to 2,279.10.Light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 5.58 cents to settle at $3.0492 a gallon, while gasoline futures sank 10.07 cents to settle at $2.6163 a gallon. Brent crude futures fell $3.47 to settle at $100.30 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

WASHINGTON It’s a Herculean task: revamping a financial regulatory system dating back to the Civil War to deal with 21st century crises imperiling the country.Under an ambitious Bush administration plan, the Federal Reserve would take on the unwieldy role of uber cop in charge of financial market stability. Other regulatory agencies could see their influence diminished.The proposal won’t fix the host of economic and financial problems that threatens to plunge the United States into a deep recession, but it might help guard against future troubles. It would take years and a lot of political wrangling - in Congress, on Wall Street, in statehouses and elsewhere - to implement all the changes envisioned.Yet, the initiative, formally announced Monday, casts a fresh spotlight on the best way to protect the country from financial catastrophes in an intricate web of complex, often-changing financial products and the wide array of financial players using them in the United States and beyond. That debate probably will take center stage in the next president’s administration.—Stocks gain on last day of quarterNEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street managed a moderate gain in the final session of a dismal first quarter Monday, but stock prices and the major indexes still ended the first three months of 2007 with massive losses, the casualties of the still continuing credit crisis. The Standard %26 Poor’s 500 index, the benchmark for many widely held investments such as mutual funds, suffered a loss for the quarter of nearly 10 percent.The blip upward came from a better than expected reading in the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, which is considered a precursor to the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey on Tuesday. The index rose to 48.2 in March from 44.5 a month earlier; economists had been expecting a reading of 47.3, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Though the number topped forecasts, a figure below 50 nonetheless indicates a contraction in manufacturing activity.The market’s reaction, however, was likely not as enthusiastic as it might seem from Monday’s gains by the major indexes. Price movements tend to be skewed when volume is as light as it was Monday.It was a difficult quarter on Wall Street, with financial companies’ ongoing credit market losses and the flagging economy wiping out many investors’ appetite for stocks. While the market saw a number of up days during the quarter, the overall trend was sharply lower, with reports of asset write-downs and shaky financial companies pummeling the market - in particular, the near-collapse of Bear Stearns %26 Cos. in mid-March.—Pernod Ricard buys maker of AbsolutSTOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Spirits group Pernod Ricard SA is adding Swedish flavor to a liquor cabinet stacked with Scotch whisky, French champagne and Cuban rum with its $8.34 billion purchase of the state-owned maker of Absolut vodka.The company said Monday it was delighted to add the premium vodka brand to its assortment of drinks, after the Swedish government accepted its bid for Absolut’s parent company, Vin %26 Sprit.The Swedish government celebrated the higher-than-expected price tag for Vin %26 Sprit, but investors were less exuberant, sending shares in France-based Pernod Ricard down 4.3 percent to $103.03 in Paris.Sweden said it selected the Pernod Ricard bid on Sunday over three other offers, by U.S.-based Fortune Brands Inc., Bermuda-based Bacardi Ltd. and an investment group controlled by Sweden’s Wallenberg family.—Less corn could mean higher food pricesWASHINGTON (AP) - From chicken nuggets to corn flakes, food prices at grocery stores and dinner tables could be headed even higher as farmers cut back on the land they’re planting in corn this spring.Corn prices already are high, and a drop in supply should keep them rising. Combine that with the huge demand for corn-based ethanol fuel - and higher energy costs for transporting food - and consumers are likely to see their food bills going up and up.Farmers are now expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the Department of Agriculture predicted Monday, down 8 percent from last year, which was the highest since World War II.Corn is almost everywhere you look in the U.S. food supply. Poultry, beef and pork companies use it to feed their animals. High fructose corn syrup is used in soft drinks and many other foods, including lunch meats and salad dressings. Corn is often an ingredient in breads, peanut butter, oatmeal and potato chips.—Merck, Schering-Plough sink on VytorinNEW YORK (AP) - Shares of Merck %26 Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. fell to record lows Monday, as analysts warned new clinical data would cause sales of their blockbuster cholesterol drug Vytorin to fall further.The companies market Vytorin through a joint venture, but earlier this year, partial results from a clinical study showed that it was no more effective at limiting plaque buildup than Merck’s Zocor, a drug that is already available in generic form. Full results of that study were released Sunday.Vytorin is a combination of Zocor and Schering-Plough’s drug Zetia.Schering-Plough shares plunged as low as $14, touching their lowest levels since August 1996. Merck shares fell as low as $36.82, their lowest since June 2006.Leading physicians are now recommending the use of older drugs called statins before putting patients on Vytorin. Many physicians had prescribed Vytorin in lieu of higher doses of statins because of what some said was an undue fear of side effects.— HUD chief resigns amid criminal probeWASHINGTON (AP) - HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.The move comes at a shaky time for the economy when soaring mortgage foreclosures imperil the nation’s credit markets.Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for Jackson to leave.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.—Oil prices slide, retail gas hits recordNEW YORK (AP) - Prices surged at the gas pump, hitting a new record Monday even as crude oil accelerated its slide amid a broad-based commodities sell-off.The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded rose to $3.287, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices were highest in Hawaii and California, where the average price topped $3.60 a gallon.Gasoline prices are expected to keep rising as the summer driving season brings with it greater demand for the fuel. Last year, prices peaked in May before backtracking; with gasoline already at a record it will like only continue its advance.If crude oil prices, which set records of their own during March continue their advance, that will also add to the cost of gasoline at the pump.On Monday, however, light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.—Citi splits consumer banking, card unitsNEW YORK (AP) - Citigroup named a veteran retail banker Monday to head its North American consumer banking unit, splitting it off from its credit-card business as Citi struggles to become profitable again after suffering its biggest quarterly loss in its 196-year history.The latest move is the biggest sign yet that CEO Vikram Pandit, appointed in December, wants to fix Citi’s major parts rather than sell them off to raise cash - at least for now.It also shows what steps Pandit would take to attract more consumers to Citi’s retail banking unit.Citi’s worst problems are in its investment banking segment, which made huge losing bets on the mortgage industry. But its bread-and-butter business of lending to and collecting deposits from average people has also been underwhelming shareholders.Citi is ubiquitous throughout the United States, but in recent years has lost customers to rival banks such as JPMorgan Chase %26 Co. and Wachovia Corp.—Major indexes rise, commodities slip as quarter endsOn the last day of the quarter, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 46.49, or 0.38 percent, to 12,262.89.Broader stock indicators also rose. The S%26P 500 index advanced 7.48, or 0.57 percent, to 1,322.70, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 17.92, or 0.79 percent, to 2,279.10.Light, sweet crude for May delivery dropped $4.04 to settle at $101.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, adding to a decline of nearly $2 a barrel on Friday. Even so, prices finished the first three months of the year 5.8 percent higher than where they started; crude set a record of $111.80 in March before giving up ground.In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 5.58 cents to settle at $3.0492 a gallon, while gasoline futures sank 10.07 cents to settle at $2.6163 a gallon. Brent crude futures fell $3.47 to settle at $100.30 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.