There are certain types of purple that I like and this is one of them. It’s soft, delicate and absolutely girly. Mix it with gorgeous Spring floral pattern and there you have it, the prettiest top. With a touch of Bohemian flair, this new Bebe crocheted top is designed in halter style for a sensuous and playful style.
Made of silk with spandex blend, are you ready to give this US$89 piece a shot?
It seems to me that I’ve been surrounded by coffee addicts; starting from my sister, mom, and now my boyfriend. The last one is pretty bad, he needs to have it every day or else he’s gonna be so cranky! Perhaps these cute magnets will be a good humor for him, what do you think?
Comes in a set of 3, these Coffee Addict magnets are hand-painted and made of resin.
Tagged at US$7.99, if you have the same situation as me, perhaps we can tickle them with these adorable set!
I would say that my fashion style is mostly casual. I hardly wear any girly stuff, which is kinda weird because I love looking at dresses and all that but my fashion category still falls to casual and sporty. And that is why I’m totally in love with this new tank from Levi’s. The chain print looks absolutely hot.
Made of lightweight cotton, it has the word comfortable written all over.
Tagged at £25, match it with your Levi’s jeans and you’re the bomb!
Clad in a white t-shirt and short shorts, Pamela Anderson looked a bit worn down as she ventured out for a little shopping in Malibu on Friday afternoon (February 27).
The former “Baywatch” babe dropped by the local Safeway, leaving with a cartful of goodies as she passed by awaiting paparazzi.
Enjoying a rare night out on the town since the birth of their baby girl, Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz were spotted leaving Chateau marmont on Friday night (February 27).
Showing off her bright red locks, Miss Simpson was shielded by her Fall Out Boy rocker as the two exited a star-studded party being held at the popular Los Angeles hotspot.
Dell Inc. said Thursday its profit dove 48 percent during the fiscal fourth quarter as the recession forced consumers and businesses to spend less on technology. The company also said it expects to make further cuts to its work force.
Earnings for the quarter that ended Jan. 30 sank to $351 million, or 18 cents per share, from $679 million, or 31 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges, Dell would have earned 29 cents per share, just above the 26 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
But sales widely missed Wall Street’s $14.2 billion forecast, dropping 16 percent to $13.4 billion from $16 billion in the prior-year period.
“We can’t predict how long this slowdown will last,” Brian Gladden, Dell’s chief financial officer, warned during a conference call with analysts. “We expect it to be protracted.”
However, after Hewlett-Packard Co.’s revenue came in light last week, investors were prepared for much worse. Relieved shareholders sent Dell stock up 24 cents, or about 3 percent, to $8.45 in after-hours electronic trading, after it closed earlier down 15 cents at $8.21.
Dell has been working to cut annual costs, and on Thursday Gladden said the company is targeting a $4 billion reduction by the end of fiscal 2011, $1 billion more than its previous goal.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell has shifted more work from its own factories to contract manufacturers and trimmed the size of its work force. Gladden indicated much of the additional $1 billion in savings will come from cutting the cost of making laptops and other computers, but that reductions in its full-time work force are also likely to play a part.
The company gave no further details on timing or extent of possible job cuts, nor did it say how many workers accepted voluntary severance packages offered last November. Dell’s full-time employee total dropped to 76,500 people 1,200 less than in the previous quarter.
Some analysts wonder whether Dell can possibly cut costs enough to stave off the effects of the economic downturn without eating into revenue. But beyond trimming costs, “they don’t have a clear plan,” said Shaw Wu, a Kaufman Bros. analyst.
Dell is struggling with the same problems it has faced over the last several quarters: it’s too dependent on the sinking PC market and U.S. sales.
“I think it’s kind of more of the same. Which is better than, ‘It’s going to get a whole lot worse,” but more of the same is not exactly great,” Wu said of the quarter.
Revenue declined across all of Dell’s product divisions. Corporations based in the Americas, which make up the biggest slice of Dell’s sales, spent 17 percent less than in the prior year. Sales to companies in the rest of the world also dropped by double digits.
Dell, the second-largest computer maker behind Hewlett-Packard Co., said it shipped 18 percent more computers for consumers worldwide in the quarter. But the rising popularity of netbooks — smaller, inexpensive laptops — pushed revenue from consumers down 7 percent.
During the conference call, Dell Chief Executive Michael Dell brushed off the idea that netbooks are hurting regular consumer laptop sales, or that they might appeal to businesspeople and represent a threat to sales to corporations, too.
But Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves disagreed, and said in an interview that he believes Dell has had to slash the prices of its lower-end laptops because netbooks, which can sell for $400 or less, make it hard to sell a basic laptop for more.
For the full year, Dell said its profit sank 16 percent to $2.48 billion, or $1.25 per share, from $2.95 billion, or $1.31 per share in 2008.
Revenue was flat at $61.1 billion.
Analysts had forecast profit of $1.32 per share on sales of $61.8 billion.
OMAHA, Neb. – Billionaire Warren Buffett says all kinds of investors finished 2008 bloodied and confused because of the dysfunctional credit market and other financial turmoil.
And the famous investor said Saturday in his letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders that “the nation’s economy will be in shambles throughout 2009.”
But Buffett remains optimistic about the country’s future. He says America has faced bigger economic challenges in the past, including two World Wars and the Great Depression.
He says America’s best days remain ahead.
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On the Net:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer Ken Ritter, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago
LAS VEGAS – Jurors grimly viewed key evidence in the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting two little girls in separate incidents in 2003.
Several jurors dabbed their eyes with tissues in a hushed courtroom late Friday as they watched a video showing the defendant, Chester Arthur Stiles, whisper to a 2-year-old while he repositioned her on a bed for various sex acts.
“Do you like that? Does it feel good?” Stiles asks the girl near the end of the 15-minute video, which the judge deemed so disturbing that she closed the courtroom to all but a few news reporters, security officers and court officials during the viewing.
Clark County District Judge Jennifer Togliatti also banned cameras, cell phones and recorders after granting access to five reporters who filed written applications to watch what she called — outside the jury’s presence — “as graphic a child pornography video that anyone has ever observed.”
Stiles, 38, kept his eyes on notes he wrote on a yellow legal pad and passed to one of his two defense lawyers while jurors watched the video.
He faces multiple terms of life in prison if convicted of any of 21 charges of lewdness with a child under the age of 14 and sexual assault with a minor under 14. He also faces two to 20 years if convicted of a charge of attempted sexual assault with a minor under 14.
One juror, sitting directly in front of the flat-screen monitor, closed his eyes several times and clutched a tissue in his clenched fist against the bridge of his nose. He stared down into the jury box for several moments after the video ended.
No one spoke. As the nine men and five women filed solemnly out of the courtroom afterward, one middle-aged man glanced toward Stiles sitting at the defendant’s table. The other 13 kept their eyes fixed straight ahead.
“Everything builds up to the video,” prosecutor Jim Sweetin said of the VHS tape, which prosecutors say Stiles filmed with the girl in a Las Vegas apartment sometime between April and August 2003.
Stiles also is accused of sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl while he and a girlfriend spent two nights as guests at the girl’s Las Vegas home in December 2003. That girl, now 11 and living in Washington state, testified Monday.
The video is the crucial piece of evidence that Stiles allegedly committed 19 felonious acts on the toddler, now 8. She has not testified. Her mother told the jury Wednesday the child has no recollection of the taped encounter with Stiles.
The video surfaced in September 2007 when an ex-convict and admitted methamphetamine user turned it in to Nye County sheriff’s deputies in Pahrump, saying he found it in the desert about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
Authorities released photo images from it to locate the child in Las Vegas, and mounted a nationwide manhunt that led to Stiles’ arrest in October 2007 in Henderson.
Also Friday, the jury heard an audiotape of a jailhouse telephone call in which Stiles tells an unidentified woman he is aware of what the video shows.
“I, you know, can’t deny what’s on the video,” he says. “And I’m not proud of it. But that’s the facts. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t even know what to say, Chet,” the woman responds.
“I don’t either,” Stiles says. “I’m just gonna sit back and take my medicine.”
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case Monday.
Stiles’ lawyers have not said if he will testify during the defense portion of the case, which could last less than a day.
The defense lost bids to prevent letters by Stiles, the jail audio, and the video from being entered as evidence.
But they have said they plan to challenge the authenticity of the tape, which they maintain has been edited.
Stiles received a warning from Togliatti during testimony earlier Friday after protesting aloud about jailhouse letters entered as evidence against him.
“It’s all taken out of context,” Stiles blurted while a former girlfriend, Susan Windrem, read a letter in which he acknowledged making “horrible decisions,” but denied being “a predator.”
Togliatti allowed Windrem to continue her testimony. Once the jury left the room, she warned Stiles he faced “ramifications” if he disrupted the trial again.
OMAHA, Neb. – Warren Buffett says the economic turmoil that contributed to a 62 percent profit drop last year at the holding company he controls is certain to continue in 2009, but the revered investor remains optimistic.
Buffett released his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders Saturday morning, and detailed the worst of his 44 years leading the Omaha-based company. But in between the news of Berkshire’s sharply lower profit and its nearly $7.5 billion investment and derivative losses, Buffett offered a hopeful view of the nation’s future.
He said America has faced bigger economic challenges in the past, including two World Wars and the Great Depression.
“Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time,” Buffett wrote. “It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America’s best days lie ahead.”
Within Berkshire, Buffett said the company’s retail businesses, including furniture and jewelry stores, and those tied to residential construction, such as Shaw carpet and Acme Brick, were hit hard last year, and they will likely continue to perform below their potential in 2009.
But he said Berkshire’s utility and insurance businesses, which includes Geico, both delivered outstanding results in 2008 that helped balance out the other businesses.
Berkshire’s 2008 net income of $4.99 billion, or $3,224 per Class A share, was down from last year’s $13.21 billion, or $8,548 per share, in 2007.
The two analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters on average expected Berkshire to report a 2008 profit of $5,534.50 per share. But the estimates typically exclude one-time items.
Buffett estimates Berkshire’s book value — assets minus liabilities — declined 9.6 percent to $70,530 per share in 2008. Berkshire’s book value declined only one other time under Buffett, and that was a 6.2 percent decline in 2001.
But Berkshire’s 9.6 percent decline still beat the S&P 500’s 37 percent decline in 2008, the report said.
Buffett devoted nearly five pages of his letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders to explaining the role derivatives played in the company’s investment losses last year.
Buffett said he initiated all of Berkshire’s 251 different derivative contracts because he believes they were mispriced in Berkshire’s favor.
“If we lose money on our derivatives, it will be my fault,” Buffett said.
Berkshire has received $8.1 billion in payments for derivatives which can be invested until the contracts expire years from now.
But Berkshire has to estimate the value of its derivatives every quarter. Buffett says he supports that mark-to-market accounting, but the formula used to estimate that value can produce absurd results for long-term contracts.
Buffett said he made at least one major investing mistake last year by buying a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak.
Berkshire increased its stake in ConocoPhillips from 17.5 million shares in 2007 to 84.9 million shares at the end of 2008.
Buffett said he did not anticipate last year’s dramatic fall in energy prices, so his decision cost Berkshire shareholders several billion dollars.
Buffett says he also spent $244 million on stock in two Irish banks that appeared cheap. But since then, he’s had to write down the value of those purchases to $27 million.
Berkshire owns a diverse mix of more than 60 companies, including insurance, furniture, carpet, jewelry, restaurants and utility businesses. And it has major investments in such companies as Wells Fargo & Co. and Coca-Cola Co.
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On the Net:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com
Warren Buffett’s 2008 letter: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2008ltr.pdf
DHAKA, Bangladesh – Firefighters dug up 10 more bodies from mass graves at the headquarters of Bangladesh’s border guards Saturday, raising the death toll to 76 in the force’s two-day mutiny over low pay and other grievances, officials said.
Political allies, who met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her home Saturday to discuss the uprising, called for national unity in a statement issued after the meeting.
Hasina, who took office in January, persuaded the guards to surrender Thursday with promises of an amnesty coupled with threats of military force.
But she said Friday there would be no amnesty for the killers, and her government gave border guards across the country 24 hours on Saturday to return to their posts or report to a local police station.
The mutineers had hurriedly dumped the bodies of dozens of senior officers into shallow graves and sewers at the headquarters compound in the capital, Dhaka. Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, the commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force. Dozens more officers were missing, and workers scoured the compound and nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.
“We think there are more bodies,” said firefighter Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, adding that 10 bodies were dug up Saturday in two mass graves. They found at least one woman’s body, which they believed was the commander’s wife, he said.
The military postponed funerals for 33 officials until all bodies were found.
“To bury all the deceased with state honors, funeral prayers and burials scheduled for today have been postponed,” the military said in a statement, adding that a new date would be announced later.
The bloodshed has raised new questions about stability in the poor South Asian nation and underlined the fragile relationship between Bangladesh’s civilian leaders and the military, which has stepped in previously to quell what it considered dangerous political instability.
The country only returned to democracy after elections in late December 2008, nearly two years after an army-backed interim administration took over amid street protests demanding electoral reforms.
Hasina has a bitter history with the military. Her father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader and its first head of state, who was killed in a 1975 military coup along with his wife and three sons.
“It’s a setback for Sheikh Hasina’s new government. It’s now a test for her how she handles the military,” said Ataur Rahman, who teaches political science at Dhaka University.
“This tragic event will force her to divert her attention from consolidating democracy and boosting the economy to tackling the challenges of national security,” he said.
The army chief, Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, met Hasina late Friday and pledged his support.
“The military will stand by the government,” Ahmed told reporters.
Following the border guards’ surrender Thursday, search teams moved into the sprawling Bangladesh Rifles compound that houses the guards and many of their families and found the gruesome evidence of the killings.
One corner of the compound, nestled under the shade of coconut palms, held two mass graves where slain officers had been put into shallow holes and covered with dirt. Firefighters used crowbars to pry off manhole covers and recover more corpses from sewers.
The insurrection erupted from the guards’ longtime frustrations that their pay hasn’t kept pace with soldiers in the army — anger aggravated by the rise in food prices that has accompanied the global economic crisis. The guards earn about $100 a month. They also demanded better living conditions and allowances for their families.
The guards also didn’t like the practice of appointing army officers to head the Bangladesh Rifles and were bitter over being excluded from U.N. peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.
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Associated Press writers Farid Hossain and Parveen Ahmed contributed to this report.