After weeks of hype and rumors, all eyes in the tech world turn to San Francisco Wednesday to see what's coming next from Apple. The company's annual fall press event is expected to showcase an updated version of the iPhone, new features for Apple TV and possibly an expansion of the iPad line.
It will be Apple's first big event since the debut of the Apple Watch in March. Wednesday's event will be held at San Francisco's 7,000-seat Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. It kicks off at 1:00 pm Eastern time, 10 am Pacific.
If these features will excite Apple fans and people around the world you can expect Apple stocks to go up. On the other hand, if Apple won’t be coming out with any innovative and interesting new products and features, you can expect the Apple stock to go down.
The good thing about trading with Binary Options is that you can trade while watching the live event. This gives you the option to act fast as the event goes on.
Meet the Dawn, Rolls-Royce's sexy new convertible. The model is called the Dawn, and it is definitely not your usual Rolls. Its contours are much more fluid, with the sides flaring out around the rear wheel wells. The front end is more rounded. It is powered by a 563 horsepower V12 engine.
The car shares much of its engineering with the Rolls-Royce Wraith, a two-door hardtop, but the body is almost entirely different. Prices are expected to start around $400,000.
The Dawn was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, and Rolls-Royce designers chose an exterior paint color, Midnight Sapphire, that mimicked the color of a nighttime sky. Inside, the leather seats were dyed in vibrant orange so that, as the top is lowered, the bright interior is revealed.
The Dawn's name harkens back the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, introduced in in the early 1950s as Great Britain was recovering from the destruction of World War II. Only 28 convertible Silver Dawns were built between 1950 and 1954.
As in other Rolls-Royce cars, the Dawn's doors open "backwards." They're hinged in the rear so that occupants step out through an opening in front of them rather than behind them as in most cars. Because that can make the car's big doors a little hard to close from inside, there are buttons that operate a door-closing mechanism.
"In creating Dawn, we have accepted no compromise to the comfort and luxury of four adults who want to travel together in the pinnacle of style," said Giles Taylor, director of Rolls-Royce design, in a statement.
Pains were taken to make sure the cloth top would work as quietly as possible. It can open and close at speeds of up to 30 miles an hour. The Dawn will not be the only convertible in the Rolls-Royce line-up: The Phantom Drophead Coupé is a convertible version of the Phantom.
Rolls-Royce's headquarters and factory are still in England but, today, it's a division of the German luxury automaker BMW.
There is a milk crisis going on in Europe that is threatening farmer’s income.
Russia has banned imports, Chinese demand is weakening and limits on production have been removed. The result: a huge glut of milk. There is so much sloshing around the European Union that milk is now cheaper than bottled water. A liter bottle of water costs around $1.50; a liter of milk $1.
The slump is a disaster for dairy farmers. Thousands protested in Brussels Monday, blocking streets with their tractors, and showering police with hay and eggs. While the price of milk in shops has fallen by around 5% this year, wholesale milk prices have collapsed by about 20% to around 33 cents.
That's forcing many farmers to sell their milk for less than it costs them to produce it. The EU said Monday it will provide farmers with 500 million euros ($555 million) in emergency support to help them cope with the plummeting prices.
Europe's dairy farmers were already reeling from the food embargo imposed by Moscow last year in retaliation for Western sanctions over Ukraine.
Russia was one of the EU's biggest markets for dairy products, accounting for 32% of cheese exports and 24% of butter exports. A slowdown in demand from China, the world's biggest milk importer, is also hurting the dairy industry. China is a big buyer of powdered milk.
Europe's farmers are now calling for the reintroduction of production quotas to try to balance the market. The quotas were abolished earlier this year, leaving farmers free to produce as much as they like for the first time in 30 years.
The deregulation led to more oversupply, piling even more pressure on prices. "Unless production is reduced, the market will carry on deteriorating at a pace," said Romuald Schaber, president of the European Milk Board, which represents dairy farmers.
Google has released a new version of Chrome that it claims will make your browser faster and give your laptop battery extra life.
Chrome is the world's most-used browser, but it isn’t perfect. All those nifty Chrome extensions and useful background apps take up a tremendous amount of your computer or smartphone's memory, slowing them down in the process. And Chrome guzzles power from your laptop or phone battery.
So Google sought to address both those gripes in its latest Chrome update this week.
To fix the speed issue, Chrome will now look for data no longer being used that's just sitting in your computer's memory. When the time is right, Chrome will take out the garbage (believe it or not, that's actually the computer science term for what the new version of Chrome is doing).
Google (GOOGL, Tech30) had already been doing some garbage collecting in previous versions of Chrome. But now, it will wait until Web pages are finished loading and completely idle -- then it will "aggressively clean up old, unused memory."
By waiting until a page is idle until it drops the hammer on unused memory, Google says that Web pages will perform faster. Previous versions of Chrome took out the garbage at random times, sometimes in the middle of an animation or video. (Ever notice an animation just stop for a second? Your browser might have been emptying the garbage.)
The new feature will reduce memory usage by 10% on average and up to 45% in some cases, Google said in a blog post.
Also, if you set Chrome to automatically restore the tabs you were using when you last closed your browser, Google will now check your system's memory before reloading all of your previously used tabs. That will save some of your system's memory too, Google said.
In addition to all the memory savings, Chrome will also spare your smartphone or laptop's battery consumption. By automatically pausing Flash animations that aren't crucial to a website's operations, Google believes it can save up to 15% of your battery life.
If this is the case and the Chrome upgrade will be as successful as Google claims, it can be a good time to invest in Google stocks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to spend an extra 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) on refugees next year as thousands more migrants poured into the country over the weekend.
Merkel said on Monday that Germany will add 3 billion euros to the 2016 federal budget and provide another 3 billion euros to states and municipalities to tackle Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II. The chancellor said “it’s not entirely implausible” that Germany will spend an extra 10 billion euros in total next year to handle the influx.
“We know that we were quick to save the banks,” Merkel said in Berlin. “I think we need to be just as quick in taking the necessary measures to ease the burden on the municipalities and states. What we are now experiencing is something that will change our country in the coming years.”
The plans for added funding comes as Germany and Austria spar with Hungary over the handling of refugees, with Hungary following a more hard-line approach to deter refugees. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said on Sunday that his country will end emergency measures that allowed the passage of thousands of migrants over the weekend from Hungary without registering.
“I can’t repeat our message to migrants often enough: ‘Please don’t come because we won’t let you through,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Budapest on Monday. “New laws passed by parliament will change our border defense system. Illegal border crossing will automatically trigger imprisonment or expulsion.”
Here is what you need to expect at next week's big Apple press event.
Apple (AAPL, Tech30) will almost definitely upgrade its iPhones, likely introduce a new Apple TV, and maybe launch a large iPad Pro.
There's a rhythm to Apple's iPhone upgrades. In even years there's a big release like the iPhone the 6, 5, and 4. In odd-numbered years the device gets a bump and an "S" on the end, namely the iPhone 5S, 4S and 3GS. It's something to keep the line fresh but nothing so drastic to anger all the people who just bought the last model.
This is an odd year. Unless Apple gets crazy, it will likely release updates to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus (iPhone 6S Plus?).
The big addition could be a Force Touch pressure sensitive screen, which adds new gesture options. Other possible changes include a new rose gold color option and a stronger aluminum shell (the same Series 7000 aluminum in its Apple Watch Sport). New phones will likely have an improved processor, more RAM, a 4K rear camera, and a better microphone.
Apple TV rumors spring eternal. It seems that every Apple event comes saddled with buzz of an Apple TV, but this time they (probably) mean something.
Apple is expected to finally release a new version of its set-top box on Wednesday. The biggest addition to the device would be Siri controls, allowing you to control TV, music and games with voice commands. A Siri button would be part of a powerful new Apple TV remote, along with s a touchpad and physical buttons.
An App Store for the TV is another rumored addition, as well as the opening of the Apple TV platform to outside developers, which could greatly increase channel and content options. Gaming could also come to the device in a big way, with downloadable games in the App Store and support for third-party gaming controllers. Inside, the Apple TV would get a significant specs bump, with a much faster processor.
Apple is expected to announce a new professional-level iPad aimed at the enterprise. The tablet would be as large as a laptop: 12.9-inches. It could have an ultra-high-resolution display, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, and possibly a stylus and USB port.
An iPad for enterprise would make sense for Apple. It's been working with companies like IBM (IBM, Tech30) and Cisco (CSCO, Tech30) to make iPhones, iPads and computers appealing to retail, research, and corporate clients. Long before it tried to sell smartphones as business devices, workers were bringing their own iPhones to the office.
Donald Trump vows that if he's elected president, he would "be the greatest jobs president that God ever created."
One of the main reasons Trump cites is that he's a businessman. He has already created jobs, he argues, so he'll do it on an even bigger scale as president. So how many jobs has Trump created as a businessman? Analysis calculates said that at least 34,000 jobs are attributed to Trump.
It's not the most straightforward calculation. His company, The Trump Organization, is private, so it does not have to disclose information publicly about how much money it makes or how many people it employs. His campaign didn't give a specific figure either.
According to PrivCo, the Trump Organization has 22,450 employees and brought in $9.5 billion in annual revenue last year. But that's not the whole picture. There are likely other jobs that might not exist without Trump. Economists call this the "multiplier effect."
New York's Broadway shows are a good example. Visitors who come to see shows, may stay at least a night or two at New York City hotels and spend money at restaurants and stores. So any analysis on the economic and job impact of Broadway takes into account more than just ticket sales and employment of actors, singers and stage hands.
The same holds true for Trump's resorts and hotels. The state of New York says that "leisure and hospitality" companies like Trump's typically have a 1.5 multiplier effect. Using that multiplier, the Trump Organization is responsible for about 34,000 jobs.
This is a rough estimate. There are arguments to be made that it should be higher or lower. Trump has acquired some existing properties, so one could argue he didn't create those jobs.
On the plus side for Trump, his name appears on many businesses he doesn't fully own, and he's been part of a successful television franchise with "The Apprentice" on NBC. It's possible to argue that he should get credit for some jobs in those ventures as well, even if they weren't part of the Trump Organization.
A more generous estimate would be to view the Trump Organization as a financial services or management company. Then the employment multiplier would be 3. That would bring jobs attributable to Trump to 67,000.
Friday is a big day for the U.S. economy. We will find out how many jobs America's economy added in August and whether wages are finally growing.
But this time the news goes beyond jobs and wages -- a big decision looms in less than two weeks for America's central bank, the Federal Reserve. And it seems to be coming down to the wire, where the jobs report could be the deciding factor.
"It should weigh heavily on the Fed's decision in that meeting," says Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. "This report takes on elevated significance."
The reason is that the jobs growth would confirm the view that the U.S. economy is recovering nicely and strong enough to withstand higher interest rates. The stock markets are extremely jittery right now because of concerns over China's economic slowdown and its effect globally. So the Fed could raise rates on September 17 and potentially risk creating even more volatility in global stock markets.
Or the Fed can wait and hope -- with no guarantee -- that things will be calmer in a few months when it meets in December. Experts are split. Some say a rate hike is coming in September while others say the Fed will wait. "My sense is that the Fed will raise rates" in September, says Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group.
However, others feel differently. Barclays economists say a rate hike won't come until March of 2016. "September liftoff is pretty much off the table at this point," says Jesse Hurwitz, a Barclays economist.
The uncertainty only adds significance to the jobs report on Friday.
If the jobs number is good tomorrow -- say north of 200,000 jobs -- it could clear the way for the Fed to justify a rate hike. If it's bad or mediocre, then the path to a rate hike become more clouded.
Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) Employment Change is a vital economic data released on the first Friday of every month. The combination of importance and earliness makes for hefty market impacts.
It's crucial data becuase Job creation is an important leading indicator of consumer spending, which accounts for a majority of overall economic activity. This announcment shows the change in the number of employed people during the previous month, excluding the farming industry.
The Announcement can make a big impact on trading markets, especially on the USD and EURO currencies in the FOREX (Foreign Exchange) market, and on Gold and Silver in the Commodities market.
Don't miss this Opportunity, make sure to speak with our agents now to maximize your trading results.
China’s Military Parade Celebrating World War II Victory was held on Wednesday.
12,000 officers and troops of the People’s Liberation Army were marching along Chang’an Avenue by Tiananmen Square. And more than 500 items of weaponry and about 200 aircraft were on display at the parade.
Hundreds of students who had gathered in front of large television screens in lecture halls at Tsinghua University in northwest Beijing to watch the Victory Day celebrations cheered when President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, appeared on the red carpet in the Forbidden City to greet foreign guests.
President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, one of the few leaders allied with the United States to show up at the parade, drew enthusiastic cheers from the students.
But there were plenty of degrading remarks about North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who is a friend of China’s but didn’t show up. The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, drew a loud plaudit. “This is a real man,” a student yelled as he leaped out of his seat.
Sentiment about the parade was mixed. There was nationalistic enthusiasm on one hand, and criticism of the Communist Party’s decision to make the march an anti-Japan event on the other.
“The parade is politically necessary,” Bai Nan, 23, an engineering student, said. “It will tell the people that China is now a strong country. And it will also somehow makes the people respect the government.”
“I admire President Xi,” he said. “He is capable in everything from anti-corruption to the conflict in the South China Sea. He is a great man.” Mr. Bai added that even though his own grandfather fought with the Communist forces against Japan during World War II, he was not anti-Japanese.
During his speech, President Xi Jinping of China announced he would reduce the country’s military personnel by 300,000 as an attempt to show that China’s is no threat to her neighbor countries and the world.
These maps of the world's economies will make you forget about China
It has been a turbulent few months for the markets, led by China's economic rebalancing.
But with all the talk of Asia's slowing growth, it's easy to forget about two of the other big drags on on the global economic outlook – Brazil and Russia.
HSBC has put together a few handy maps to illustrate how the world is doing.
Admittedly, Brazil and Russia have large land masses so may look disproportionately bad in bright red. But they are also the largest two of only a handful of economies to experience negative growth.
Here's the map of gross-domestic-product (GDP) growth:
Brazil contracted 2.6% in the past year, while Russia's economy shrank by 4.6%.
The two countries have also been the hardest hit by inflation out of the big global economies. Russia's inflation rate is up at 15.6% (coupled with an 11% interest rate), while Brazil's inflation is over 9%.
The inflation map:
But perhaps even more worrying for Russia is the country's demographic problem. Russia's working-age population growth is expected to stay stagnant while accelerating in the rest of the world.
After months of experimenting with all-day breakfast in several markets, McDonald's will make it available nationwide starting October 6.
McDonald's is making a host of changes in a bid to turn around slumping sales. Now comes breakfast all the time.
Customers will be offered a selection of muffins or biscuits, depending on the location of the restaurant. The menu also includes hotcake platters and sausage burritos. McDonald's has been testing all-day breakfast since March and told franchisees to prepare for an October launch.
The company is juggling two objectives at odds with one another: appeasing unhappy franchisees who want to cull the menu, while launching new offerings to boost sales. In July, a McDonald's spokesperson said all-day breakfast "is likely the number one request" from customers.
McDonald's (MCD) CEO Steve Easterbrook took the reins in March, inheriting a 15% profit decline in 2014. He outlined a turn around strategy about two months later, focusing on an internal reorganization and plans to franchise more restaurants. He offered few details on how the company would improve food quality and enhance its brand image -- two of its biggest challenges.
The latest announcement comes as competitors ramp up their breakfast offerings. Taco Bell launched an ad campaign that targets millennial customers, urging them to "shake off the shackles of boring breakfast."
LeAnn Richards, a franchisee who owns eight restaurants in Arizona, led the task force that studied the implication of the expanded menu. Richards said restaurants needed a dedicated egg griddle so that the kitchen could cook eggs at the same as chicken and burgers. Restaurants that offer McMuffins also needed a toaster exclusively for the muffins.
Mike Andres, president of McDonald's USA, said the changes will cost between $500 and $5,000 for each franchisee and that McDonald's will help pay for them. He declined to provide a specific breakdown of the split.
A major global financial crisis takes place every now and then. But what determines the timing of their appearance? Is it just a matter of coincidence? Or does it involve a mystical reason? An ancient biblical custom may answer this question.
In his most recent book, Jonathan Cahn has pointed out that almost all of the major financial crashes in U.S. history were very closely tied to a ‘seven year’ pattern known in the Bible as “the Shemitah”.
A written in the Bible, the people of Israel were commanded to let the land lie fallow every seven years. There would be no sowing and no reaping, something that people at the time took very seriously. In fact, the failure to observe these Shemitah years was one of the main reasons cited in the scriptures for why the Jewish people were exiled to Babylon in 586 BC.
But there was more to the Shemitah year than just letting the land lie fallow. On the last day of the Shemitah year, the people of Israel were instructed to perform a releasing of debts. This happened at the end of every seven years on Elul 29 – the day right before Rosh Hashanah on the Biblical calendar.
So what does this have to do with us today?
Well, if you go back to the last day of the Shemitah year in 2001, you will find that there was an absolutely horrifying stock market crash.
At the end of the next Shemitah year in 2008, another horrifying stock market crash took place.
And now we are in another Shemitah year. It began last fall, and it will end next September. So is it possible that we will see another historic market crash?
We are going to find soon. The last day of the year, Elul 29 on the Hebrew calendar, which will occur on Sept. 13, 2015, is the most dreaded day, if something would to happen that will be the time.
This mysterious explanation is gaining momentum and making people fear from the near future to come. It is most widely discussed at India, where people are preparing for the worst.
We here at SignalsBinary have our doubts about this mystical argument. At the same time, if this theory will gain further momentum it could affect the Markets. Remember, every movement in the stock market is determined by people and people are moved by their feelings. In this case things can play out as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Apple wants to make its own TV shows and movies, according to a new report.
Apple has been meeting with Hollywood executives with an eye toward making its own original TV shows and movies, Variety reports.
The news comes just more than a week before Apple's September 9 event, where it's expected to launch the next version of its Apple TV set-top device.
According to Variety's sources, a division of Apple that reports to iTunes frontman Eddy Cue has been sounding this out for a while. While accounts vary, apparently Apple is looking to make Netflix-style long-form TV content.
In fact, the report says, Apple made an "unprecedented bid" for "Top Gear" hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond after they left the BBC car-enthusiast show in July. Apparently, Apple ultimately lost to Amazon, which offered $36 million for Clarkson alone.
This move would ratchet up competition with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon in an effort by Apple to strengthen its own content platform and make the Apple TV a more differentiated device in a crowded marketplace.
Currently, the iTunes store only sells episodes a la carte, but given Apple Music's monthly all-you-can-stream subscription fee structure, it's certainly feasible that it could move to a Netflix-style subscription plan for this content, too.
The news comes as Apple is also reportedly seeking to create an over-the-top streaming television service, which would bundle several cable channels and be available through the Apple TV device. Apple has apparently been negotiating with various media companies for quite some time, but a streaming video service could arrive as soon as next year for a starting price of $40 a month, 9to5Mac recently reported.
Apple's plan to create its own original content is apparently still in the early phase, and will likely not get announced at next week's event. Still, if this report pans out, it's a sign that Apple is even more serious about its TV ambitions.
In a documentary-style video, the group presented its new currency, claiming to circulate its own gold coins.
The Islamic State militant group has claimed to have started its own currency by minting coins and described the move as a “second blow” to the U.S. after 9/11, according to a newly released video.
In the documentary-style video, the radical group presented its new currency, claiming to have started minting and circulating its own gold coins.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in the video, described the step as a “second blow to the United States and its capitalist financial system of enslavement”, after the 9/11 attacks, according to SITE intelligence group.
In the video entitled “The Rise of the Khilafah and the Return of the Gold Dinar” released on Saturday, the ISIS shows the smelting of gold, silver and copper coins.
The new ISIS currency comes in several denominations of gold, silver and copper, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The coins are imprinted with Islamic symbols and “are completely void of human and animal images in accordance with Shariah law,” according to the narrator in the propaganda video. The reverse side of one coin shows seven wheat stalks, “representing the blessing of spending in the path of Allah,” says the narrator.
The video, narrated in English with Arabic subtitles, begins with an extensive analysis on “the capitalist financial system of enslavement, underpinned by a piece of paper called the Federal Reserve dollar note,” and the corruption that allowed for the American destruction of the monetary system.
Last year in November, ISIS had announced its plans to mint its own currency in gold, silver and copper. It had stated back then that the aim of the currency was to stay away from the “tyrant’s financial system“.
ISIS is considered to be one of the richest terror groups in history. Theft, oil smuggling, extortion and human trafficking are considered some of the sources of income for the extremist group that has taken over large territories in Syria and Iraq.
The U.S. officials say that ISIS has become a self-sustaining financial force, as the group earns more than $3 million a day.
We saw the good, bad and ugly side of fear over the global economy last week.
The Dow fell 1,000 points shortly after it opened Monday as global markets nosedived and fears about the scale of China's economic slowdown rippled across the world.
The Dow also had its best 2-day rally in its history on Thursday, after finding out that the U.S. economy is doing pretty well.
And, oh, the Fed sent mixed signals -- again! -- about a possible interest rate hike in September, less than three weeks from now.
The solid and steady U.S. economy still stands out against all the global turmoil. And next Friday's crucial jobs report will provide an important check-up on America that could confirm the strength of the economy.
This jobs report is especially key because it plays a big role in the Fed's decision -- the central bank could raise its benchmark interest rates for the first time in a decade in September.
If the American job market looks strong, it could push Fed committee members towards a September rate hike, despite the latest turmoil in the global stock market.
A good amount of job gain is anything above 200,000 jobs.
Everyone will pay extra attention to wage growth Friday -- it's a key measure of inflation, one of two key yardsticks for the Fed to justify a rate hike.
The Fed's committee holds a key meeting 10 days after the jobs report comes out. There are only two other important pieces of data (retail sales and inflation) coming after this. So this jobs report holds a lot of weight.
We just learned that the U.S. economy had a better first half than previously thought -- the Commerce Department significantly revised U.S. economic growth between April and June from 2.3% to 3.7%.
"If you look at the U.S. economic numbers, there is a pretty good case for September," says Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
A rate hike would be a vote of confidence from the Fed on the U.S. economy's health and its future direction. However, investors fear a Fed rate hike could hinder momentum for the 6-year old bull market. The global economy -- specifically China and its impact -- could outweigh any good U.S. economic progress.
Facebook hit an unprecedented benchmark: One billion users in a single day.
That happened for the first time on Monday, and co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the milestone on Thursday. He noted in a Facebook (FB, Tech30) post that a billion users is equal to about 1 in 7 people on Earth.
"When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different," Zuckerberg wrote. "This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it's just the beginning of connecting the whole world."
The company reported in July that it had about 1.5 billion people logging on at least once a month.
Zuckerberg said Monday's achievement is significant because it's a platform that lets users interact.
"A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values," he said.
Virginia TV journalists killed by suspect with 'powder keg' of anger.
Two television journalists were shot to death during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday, slain by a former employee of the TV station and who called himself a "powder keg" of anger over what he saw as racial discrimination at work and elsewhere in the United States.
The suspect, 41-year-old Vester Flanagan, shot himself as police pursued him on a Virginia highway hours after the shooting. Flanagan, who was African-American, died later at a hospital, police said.
The journalists who were killed were reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27. Both journalists were white, as is a woman who they were interviewing. The woman was wounded and was in stable condition, a hospital spokesman said.
Social media postings by a person who appeared to be Flanagan indicated the suspect had grievances against the station, CBS affiliate WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Virginia, which let him go two years ago. The person also posted video that appeared to show the attack filmed from the gunman's vantage point.
Flanagan sent ABC News a 23-page fax about two hours after the shooting, saying his attack was triggered by the June 17 mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the network said. Nine people were killed, and a white man has been charged in that rampage.
The network cited Flanagan as saying he had suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work. He had been attacked by black men and white women, and for being a gay black man, he said.
"The church shooting was the tipping point ... but my anger has been building steadily," ABC News cited the fax as saying. "I've been a human powder keg for a while ... just waiting to go BOOM!"
The on-air shooting occurred at about 6:45 a.m. EDT at Bridgewater Plaza, a Smith Mountain Lake recreation site about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Washington.
The broadcast was abruptly interrupted by the sound of gunshots as Parker and the woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, screamed and ducked for cover.
Hours after the shooting, someone claiming to have filmed it posted video online. The videos were posted to a Twitter account and on Facebook by a man identifying himself as Bryce Williams, which was Flanagan's on-air name.
The videos were removed shortly afterward. In one video, a handgun was clearly visible as the person filming approached the female reporter.
The person purporting to be Williams also posted, "I filmed the shooting see Facebook" as well as saying one of the victims had "made racist comments."
Finally, some good news this week. the U.S. economy was in even better shape than we thought between April and June.
The U.S. economy grew 3.7% in the second quarter, a very big upward revision than the first official estimate, 2.3%, according to the Commerce Department's measure of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity. Economists projected the new number to be 3.2%.
Thursday's upward revision is welcome news as China's slowing economy is sparking volatility in stock markets, plunging currencies in emerging markets and potentially delaying a rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Construction and business spending rose in the three months, helping drive the overall GDP number up.
The good economic data only increases the speculation about when the Fed will raise its key interest rate. For much of the summer, economists believed the Fed would do a rate hike in September. But with China's devaluation of the Yuan, and the recent turmoil in U.S. stock markets, the consensus is gradually shifting to December for a rate hike.
New York Fed President William Dudley says a September rate hike is "less compelling," now, but he didn't completely rule it out either.
Even Dudley mentioned on Wednesday that he anticipated GDP going higher, and he said the U.S. economy is still doing well.
Rate hike rumblings aside, the revised GDP figure shows that the U.S. economy is still having a solid year despite all the headwinds abroad.
After looking like they were going to make it six losses from six sessions, Chinese stocks staged a ridiculously large rally in the final 45 minutes of trade, closing Thursday’s session with mammoth 5% plus gains.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite index, having traded higher for most of the session, looked like it was going to fall yet again into the close, slipping into negative territory with less than an hour to trade.
Then, just when it looked like all hope was lost, it began to surge higher, then higher, and then higher again. In the space of just 46 minutes, the index staged a turnaround of 6.11%, eventually closing the session up an enormous 5.39%. It was ridiculous, and reeked of government intervention.
Whatever the reason, it was the largest one-day percentage increase since July 9 this year, and trimmed the index’s weekly loss to only 12.04%.
Yes, it’s been that kind of week. Unsurprisingly, all sectors finished in the black with financials, up 6.16%, leading the charge higher.
Given chatter yesterday that government-backed bodies – China’s so-called “national team” – were buying heavily in state-owned banks, this fits with the theory that the government were likely responsible for the breakneck late rally.
As was the case on Wednesday, large-cap stock indices outperformed their smaller peers. The SSE 50, comprising large-cap stocks listed in Shanghai, surged by 7.87% while the CSI 300 added an equally-impressive 5.95%.
While they lagged their larger compatriots, the CSI 500, Shenzhen Composite and ChiNext indices – brimming with small-cap stocks – all rose by more than 3%. So the five-day, 20% plus losing streak for stocks has come to a spectacular end.
However, with the benchmark Shanghai composite index still down 40.42% from its June 12 peak, it’s unlikely to convince many that the rout in stocks is over yet.
One day does not make a trend, and there’s little doubt that extreme oversold conditions, coupled with likely government intervention, played a significant role in the late rally today.
It will be interesting for many observers to see whether the extreme gains can be sustained tomorrow.
