KARACHI: Bull-run continued at the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) on Thursday as further investment mainly in lowest scrips added 150 more points to the benchmark KSE 100-share Index, pushing it further up to hit a new record at 21,591.
The local equities market remained upbeat for the fourth consecutive day today, as the major Index soared to a new height, unprecedented in the capital market history of Pakistan.
The trade volume was registered at 640 million shares, first time in seven years.
SINGAPORE: Oil was up in Asia on Friday, with dealers buying up the commodity after a drop in prices over the past few days, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July increased two cents to $93.63 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for July delivery added ten cents to $102.29 in mid-morning trade.
NEW YORK: Seven people, including two students, were injured Tuesday in an apparent accidental gas explosion at a college north of New York City, authorities said.
"There were seven injuries. All of them minor injuries. They were transferred to the hospital to be checked out," a police spokesman told AFP about the blast at Nyack College.
He said the cause of the explosion was unknown but that "they believe there was a natural gas line" problem.
The school said the blast hit at about 1545 GMT "in Sky Island Lodge, a building that houses the School of Business and Leadership, on the Rockland County campus.
There was no fire associated with the explosion." "Five employees and two adult students were in the building at the time and all are accounted for.
There were injuries, but no fatalities. All individuals were taken to the hospital for examination as a precautionary measure."
The school, founded in 1882, is a private Christian institution.
RIYADH: A Saudi man who slapped his wife has earned himself a flogging and jail sentence, in a rare ruling in the Gulf kingdom that
imposes stiff restrictions on women, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.
A court in the town of Safwa, in the eastern Qatif district, sentenced the man to 10 days in jail and 30 lashes, Al-Sharq daily said.
The judge also allowed the woman to attend the flogging and ordered her
husband to enrol in a course on dealing with partners.
The woman, in her twenties, had lodged a complaint against her husband
after he slapped her during an argument. The man admitted hitting her, saying his wife "was rude to his parents."
The ruling is very uncommon in the ultra-conservative kingdom, where men
usually get the upper hand, while women are dependent on their male guardians in most aspects of their lives.
Women need a close male relative to accompany them if they enter government buildings and courts. Saudi women also are banned from driving and are obliged to cover themselves from head to toe when they are in public.
The King Khalid Foundation, which is a Saudi charity, launched in May the kingdom's first anti-domestic violence advertising campaign.
ISTANBUL: Fresh violence erupted early Wednesday as protesters defied a government plea to end days of deadly unrest, the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decade-long rule.
Police used tear gas and water cannon on hundreds of protesters, who
ignored warnings to disperse in Istanbul, Ankara and the southeastern city of Hatay, where a young protester died a day earlier.
The violence came after a second major trade union confederation announced it would join protests against the government, calling a strike for Wednesday. In the western city of Izmir, police detained at least 25 people early Wednesday for tweeting "misleading and libellous information", state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc apologised to legitimate
demonstrators injured by the security forces, a gesture welcomed by the United States. But that did not appease outraged protestors.
Thousands gathered at Istanbul's Taksim Square for a sixth day Wednesday, yelling defiance at Erdogan, who earlier had dismissed the protesters as "extremists" and "vandals". He was in Algeria on the second day of a four-day official visit to north Africa.
"The vandals are here! Where is Tayyip?" yelled the crowd. They accuse Erdogan, who has won three successive national elections, of
imposing conservative Islamic reforms on the predominantly Muslim but
constitutionally secular nation.
But the festive atmosphere in the square was a change from the tense
rallies of the previous five days. Turkish pipe music and singing blared over speakers as the crowd clapped along. Even fans from rival football teams Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce linked arms, united in protest.
The wave of protests broke out on Friday after police tear-gassed
demonstrators at a peaceful rally against plans to build on an Istanbul park. On Tuesday, Arinc said sorry to those who had been caught up in that initial violence.
"I apologise to those who were subject to violence because of their
sensitivity for the environment," he said, though he added that his apology excluded "the rioters".
"The government has learnt its lesson from what happened," he added. "We do not have the right and cannot afford to ignore people. Democracies cannot exist without opposition." He called on "responsible citizens" to stop the protests.
Two people have been killed in the clashes, officials and medics say, and rights groups say thousands have been injured. The government puts the figure at around 300.
Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) first took power in
2002, has accused the main opposition Republican People's Party of having a hand in the protests.
The Turkish Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK), which
represents 240,000 employees, lent its weight to the protests when it launched a two-day strike on Tuesday.
Spokesman Baki Cinar dismissed Arinc's conciliatory statement.
"The apology is just damage control and only because they know they are
stuck," he told AFP.
On Tuesday, an even bigger union grouping, DISK, which claims 420,000
members, said it would join the strike and demonstrations on Wednesday.
The United Nations joined Turkey's key strategic ally the US and other
Western partners in voicing concern about reports of police violence. It called for an independent investigation into the allegations.
The White House praised Arinc for his statement on Tuesday.
"We welcome the deputy prime minister's comments apologising for excessive force, and we continue to welcome calls for these events to be investigated," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Turkey, a country of 75 million people, is an important ally of the US in the region and has backed it notably in opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.
Sitting at the crossroads of East and West, Turkey has long aspired to join the European Union, which sets strict requirements on human rights standards for prospective members.
Opponents have accused Erdogan of repressing critics -- including
journalists, minority Kurds and the military -- and of pushing conservative Islamic policies such as religious education reforms and a law curbing the sale of alcohol.
\
Erdogan told protesters they should wait to express their views in
elections next year, when observers expect him to run for president.
"For me, democracy comes from the ballot box," he said, insisting the
disturbances would calm down by the time he had returned to Turkey on Thursday.
Italy said Tuesday that it considered the violence had not undermined
Turkey's chances of joining the EU. "We are confident that Turkey will overcome this difficult moment, proving itself to be a mature democracy," Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said in a statement.
Although the Istanbul stock market had closed 10 percent lower on Monday it recovered by nearly five percent on Tuesday after Arinc's comments.
ISTANBUL: Fresh violence erupted early Wednesday as protesters defied a government plea to end days of deadly unrest, the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decade-long rule.
Police used tear gas and water cannon on hundreds of protesters, who ignored warnings to disperse in Istanbul, Ankara and the southeastern city of Hatay, where a young protester died a day earlier.
The violence came after a second major trade union confederation announced it would join protests against the government, calling a strike for Wednesday.
In the western city of Izmir, police detained at least 25 people early Wednesday for tweeting "misleading and libellous information", state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc apologised to legitimate demonstrators injured by the security forces, a gesture welcomed by the United States.
But that did not appease outraged protestors.
Thousands gathered at Istanbul's Taksim Square for a sixth day Wednesday, yelling defiance at Erdogan, who earlier had dismissed the protesters as "extremists" and "vandals". He was in Algeria on the second day of a four-day official visit to north Africa.
"The vandals are here! Where is Tayyip?" yelled the crowd.
They accuse Erdogan, who has won three successive national elections, of imposing conservative Islamic reforms on the predominantly Muslim but constitutionally secular nation.
But the festive atmosphere in the square was a change from the tense rallies of the previous five days. Turkish pipe music and singing blared over speakers as the crowd clapped along.
Even fans from rival football teams Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce linked arms, united in protest.
The wave of protests broke out on Friday after police tear-gassed demonstrators at a peaceful rally against plans to build on an Istanbul park.
PAHALA, Hawaii : The U.S. Geological Survey says a magnitude-5.6 earthquake struck off the southeast coast of Hawaii.
Tuesday afternoon's earthquake was centered about 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Pahala on the Big Island, at a depth of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). Officials say it's not expected to generate a tsunami.
Hawaii County Civil Defense Director Darryl Oliveira says there are no immediate reports of damage.
The USGS website says people as far away as Maui and Oahu reported feeling weak shaking. The Oahu Department of Emergency Management says some areas may have experienced strong shaking.
Kevin Dayton, the executive assistant to the mayor, says he felt a large jolt in the county building in Hilo. Tony Andrade, a stock clerk at the Mizuno Superette grocery store in Pahala, says the shelves rocked but nothing fell off.
MOSCOW: Thousands of commuters were evacuated from the Moscow metro on Wednesday after a high-voltage electric cable caught fire, filling station platforms with smoke at the height of the rush hour, emergency officials said.
The emergencies ministry said around 4,500 people were evacuated after the fire broke out in a tunnel between the Okhotny Ryad and Biblioteka Imeni Lenina (Lenin Library) stations close to the Kremlin at around 8:20 am (0420 GMT).
Russian television showed pictures of smoke filling the Okhotny Ryad station, one of the system's oldest, which has exits close to the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theatre.
The fire was extinguished in just over 40 minutes. A total of 45 people sought medical attention and seven were hospitalised, a spokesman for the emergencies ministry, Viktor Biryukov, told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The health ministry said that those hospitalised were suffering from smoke inhalation, while some of those who asked for medical help were suffering "from a serious reaction to stress."
The head of the Moscow metro system, Ivan Besedin, told the Interfax news agency that the fire started in a "complicated technical junction linked to the contact rail."
The metro line affected was shut down but was set to reopen by 1:30 pm (0930 GMT).
PRAGUE: Cities in Germany and the Czech Republic were scrambling Wednesday to stave off potential disaster as a flood wave headed north, sending thousands of people fleeing their homes.
Hungary has also declared a state of alert as waters surge in the mighty Danube, which is also threatening cities in Austria.
In the Czech Republic, where eight people have already perished in the floods, thousands of households in the north were without power, gas and drinking water.
Several cities in the north of the Czech Republic and eastern Germany are threatened by the surging waters of the Elbe river after torrential rains across swathes of central Europe.
In the German city of Dresden, near the Czech border, several hundred people have been evacuated as water levels in the Elbe were forecast to reach up to nine metres.
Across the Czech Republic, over 19,000 have been evacuated since the floods began, firefighters' spokeswoman Nicole Zaoralova said.
Water levels in the Elbe were expected to peak in the Czech industrial city of the Usti nad Labem on Wednesday, said Jiri Petr, a spokesman for the Povodi Labe water company.
The rising river has already forced 3,700 people from their homes in Usti nad Labem, which lies about 30 kilometres from the German border, and flooded the local railway station.
The water levels expected in Usti nad Labem are close to those recorded in 2002 when massive flooding swept central Europe, killing 17 people in the Czech Republic alone.
In addition to the eight people already declared dead, Czech police are still searching for four missing people.
From Usti, the mass of water will head downstream to eastern Germany, where cities on the Elbe, including Dresden and Magdeburg, are bracing for the flood.
In Magdeburg, authorities declared a state of emergency and said they expected the river, normally at two metres, to rise to almost seven metres -- higher than in 2002.
A slew of data about the housing market will be the focus of economic news in this holiday-shortened week.
Tuesday
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index for December is scheduled to be released, and forecasters expect it to show that prices edged down 0.5 percent in 20 major cities. The index is calculated using a moving average of the previous three months, and captures when home sales close, not when contracts are agreed to. That means an expected dip in home prices - analysts predict a 2.3 percent drop in the year ended in January - should reflect the autumn lull in the economy. The question is whether the improved economic outlook over the past few months will translate into a firming up of home prices in early 2011.
Wednesday
The National Association of Realtors plans to release data on existing-home sales, which are expected to show that the pace of transactions edged down 1.5 percent in January, following a steep 12.3 percent rise in December. Even if the projection of a slight January dip proves accurate, it will be only a slight reversal of December's gains.
Thursday
Two more pieces of housing data before the weekend: The Commerce Department's new home sales data is expected to show an 8.8 percent decline in the pace of home purchases in January. It's not as bad as it sounds; it would represent only a partial reversal of a 17.5 percent gain in December.
And the Federal Housing Finance Agency is releasing its home-price index, which is expected to be unchanged.
Also Thursday, orders for durable goods are expected to show a rise of 3 percent. However, analysts expect orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a less volatile measure of trends in business investment, to have fallen 0.9 percent.
Friday
The Commerce Department is expected to revise its fourth-quarter gross domestic product estimate from 3.2 percent to 3.3 percent.
- Neil Irwin
Neil's Must Reads
How has Tim Geithner gone from being the most-attacked public servant in town to last man standing among President Obama's economic team? Noam Scheiber has the story in The New Republic. And the McKinsey Global Institute has a new report on the productivity gains the United States will need to maintain its global economic edge.
Find links at washingtonpost.com/mustreads
Caleb Ferguson for The New York Times Heritage Wines will host a series of free wine tastings this weekend.The Brooklyn Flea expands its empire with the debut on Friday of SmorgasBar, located on Front Street near Fulton Street at the South Street Seaport, to help the area’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy. Through October, various vendors will set up shop next to a bar — which serves beer, wines and spirits — located inside a shipping container. The hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. the rest of the week.
Heritage Wines, 237 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, will host a series of free wine tastings this weekend featuring producers who grow grapes in regions with volcanic land. Wines form Greece, Italy and Hungary will be tasted on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m.
A Polish festival with food, music and family-friendly activities will take place rain or shine Saturday and Sunday at the German Masonic Park, 89 Western Highway in Tappan, N.Y. For the food, expect traditional fare like pierogies, stuffed cabbage, kielbasa and potato pancakes.
An Indonesian food bazaar, which takes place a few weekends throughout the summer, will be open on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. outside the Al-Hikmah Mosque, 48-01 31st Avenue in Astoria, Queens. Attendees can expect traditional dishes like nasi rawon and a variety of skewers.
In conjunction with the premiere this weekend of HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra,” a film about Liberace, an exhibit displaying the performer’s famed grand piano, the world’s largest rhinestone and other items from the Liberace Foundation will be on display at the Time Warner Center. In a nod to Liberace’s taste for only drinking sparkling wine in public, Moët & Chandon will also have a large Champagne tower on display for the celebration. The exhibit is open through Memorial Day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Brunch service begins at the recently opened Little Prince, 199 Prince Street in SoHo, on Saturday. The menu skews toward a French influence with dishes like a brioche pain perdu soaked in vanilla crème with berry compote and ricotta, croquet madame. The menu is available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
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Muscoot Tavern 105 Somerstown Turnpike, (Route 100), Somers (914) 232-2800 muscoottavern.com GOOD THE SPACE An odd-shaped, intriguing space with bowed walls, a low ceiling that opens up in the center and a well-worn floor. Wheelchair accessible. THE CROWD Casual, relaxed, often families or groups. Waiters are attentive. THE BAR A cozy, welcoming area along one side of the main room. The wine list is small and mostly house ($7 to $9 a glass; $24 to $75 a bottle), the beers ($4 to $7 a glass) are basic (with a few exceptions, including Westchester’s own Captain Lawrence), but the drinks are big and the bartender is friendly. THE BILL 14-inch pizzas run $12 to $20; entrees, $14 to $19 or low $20s for the occasional special. Major credit cards accepted. WHAT WE LIKED Clams casino, chicken wings, steamed clams, fried calamari, baby spinach salad (special); Brooklyn pizza, New York strip, Danish baby back ribs (special), spaghetti with meatballs, rotisserie chicken, chicken parmigiano with linguine, fried lobster tail (special); German chocolate cake (special), lava cake, brownie sundae. IF YOU GO Open Monday to Thursday, noon to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to midnight; Sunday, 4 to 10 p.m. Reservations for groups of eight or more only. Free parking on site. RATINGS Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.Andrew Leighton is not a golfer, but the prospect of living on a golf course was intriguing when he and his family discovered the Cross Creek neighborhood. Now, Leighton, his wife, Jackie and their two children enjoy the view from their home adjacent to the course, located along the border between Prince George's and Montgomery counties.
"Sitting on the deck, watching the golfers play, is very nice," said Leighton, 42, a native of Jamaica. The Leightons had lived in the nearby Cherry Hill Road area and had been looking for a bigger house. They found spacious, modern homes in Cross Creek, along with what Leighton called a very welcoming neighborhood, great for raising a family.
"Our neighbors' children attend the same Catholic school (St. Francis International School in Silver Spring) as my kids, so we've got a carpool thing going. There are six or seven homes nearby where I know everyone," he said.
Cross Creek has attracted families such as the Leightons as well as other residents who say the upscale development, located just off Interstate 95 and minutes from the Beltway, is perfect for commuting between Washington and Baltimore. And residents have found that once they return home from work, they are greeted by friendly neighbors and enjoy plenty of outlets to satisfy active lifestyles.
Many were attracted by the golf course, a challenging 6,300-yard par 70 layout along both sides of the Little Paint Branch stream. The course winds its way through the community, mainly behind the homes, and motorists need to be wary of "cart crossings" as golfers traverse the streets.
Patsy Koehler and her husband, Bob, avid golfers who had lived nearby off Fairland Road, made the move to the community in 2003. "We loved it," Patsy Koehler recalled. "Loved the golf course, loved the houses, loved it all."
"For a community course, it's beautiful," she said. "Big trees, greenery . . . a lot of natural environment because the builder didn't cut down the trees. You would never know it was in the middle of suburbia."
When the Koehlers aren't golfing, they're often watching other golfers from their home just off one of the fairways. They also spend time with friends in the neighborhood. Residents say the open interior layouts of the homes, built mostly by Ryan Homes and NV Homes, are perfect for socializing. "A marvelous house to entertain because it's not compartmentalized," said Bob Koehler, 58, whose home features an open floor plan, with large windows and a high ceiling.
Patsy Koehler, 63, serves as the president of the Cross Creek Club Homeowners Association, which sponsors a host of community events designed to unify residents in the development, which lacks continuous street connections because of the golf course and the natural areas. In addition to a spring festival and picnic, the association has held international dinners and jazz nights.
That has created an atmosphere that residents say encourages community engagement. Brian McDaniel, 41, a lawyer and avid golfer, said the course was a draw for him, as was Cross Creek's location, which keeps him within reach of his D.C. office as well as courthouses in Rockville, Upper Marlboro and Baltimore.
But McDaniel said Cross Creek is more than just a convenient place to live. He recalls his neighbors' friendliness while his family was moving in about three years ago and says the positive vibe has continued. "Our community is very diverse. There's a number of different ethnicities. We've all been very respectful of one another . . . learning about other cultures." McDaniel and his wife, Felecia, a fitness expert, and their 3-year-old daughter have found that there is plenty to do as a family. In addition to the golf course and neighborhood parks, the nearby Fairland Community Recreation Center features gymnastics and aquatics, and the Gardens Ice House offers skating. "You can't go wrong if you want to stay active," he said.
McDaniel and Leighton work with Koehler on the association's board, which serves more than 600 homeowners.
I was touring a new home, and one of the features that really interested me was the central vacuum system. It seems like one of these would be really handy. What's involved when you install a central vacuum? Can you share some tips, especially what not to do? - Ray H., Newtown, Pa.
I've been really lucky for the past 25 years in that the last two houses I've lived in both have had a central vacuum system.
I have to tell you that I don't know if I would be able to handle going back to a traditional vacuum that you have to lug around the house.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about central vacuum systems is the myth that they can only be installed when building a new home. That's simply not true. It's absolutely easier to install one when the walls are wide open, but believe me, a talented installer can put one in an existing home with relative ease.
When you toured that new home, you saw outlets on the walls that looked something like an electrical outlet. These have a door that flips open, and the end of the central vac hose plugs into the hole. Small metal contacts inside the outlet cause the remote motor in the vacuum to immediately turn on, and you're ready to work.
The pipe in the walls is two inches in diameter. The inner diameter of the flexible hose that you use to clean with is about 11/4 inches. This is by design, so that it's almost impossible for the pipe hidden in the walls to become clogged. If an object can pass through the flexible hose in your hands, then it can also make it through the walls to the actual vacuum canister.
There are any number of mistakes you can make when installing a central vac system. One is putting in too few outlets. You have to account for furniture being in your way, so the length of the flexible hose doesn't always reach as far as you might think. You'll never regret having too many outlets. The parts needed to do this are inexpensive.
You can make a mistake in where you locate the canister.
Most systems have the motor and the canister as one unit. The motor can be loud, so I recommend putting this out in the garage. The added benefit to this is when you empty the canister or replace the bag, dust is kept out of your home.
Some installers will take a shortcut and not run the exhaust pipe outdoors. Don't fall into this trap. You want the air to exit the house in case it contains very fine dust particles. Always follow the instructions of the manufacturer. If they say to exhaust the machine outdoors, do it.
If you put your canister and motor in your garage, be sure there is an outlet on the machine. If not, then put in a regular outlet in a wall on the garage. It's so handy to be able to use the central vac to clean a car.
Perhaps the most common mistake I see when installers put in a central vac, and one that does exhaust outdoors, is leaving out a fresh-air intake.
A central vacuum consumes vast amount of air when it's turned on. If you have a very tight home, the operation of a central vacuum could possibly cause backdrafting of combustion gases into your home, which could cause carbon-monoxide poisoning. It can also make a house smell like smoke if you have wood-burning fireplaces or wood stoves as the vacuum gets its replacement air by sucking it down a chimney.
Tim Carter is a columnist for Tribune Media Services. He can be contacted through his Web site, www.askthebuilder.com.
I'm going to install hardwood flooring. I'm talking about traditional tongue-and-groove hardwood that's 3/4-inch thick, not engineered hardwood flooring. My plan is to try it myself and only call in installers if I mess up. What do you think of this idea? It can't be that difficult - you just nail the boards to the floor. The cost of having the entire job done by professionals would really put a hardship on my budget. What tips can you share to help me do this job myself? -Susan W., Palo Alto, Calif.
I usually encourage people to try things themselves, for many reasons. First, it's fulfilling to accomplish a task and stand back and survey your stellar results. It's also possible to save money. But when it comes to a complete rookie installing hardwood flooring, I have to tell you that you're probably going to fail.
Installation is a true art, given the material you've chosen. And forget what you've seen on some of the cable television home-improvement shows, where they gloss over the finer points of installing the material that can last generations.
I'll never forget watching the first hardwood floor go down on one of my jobs. The tools the installer used were some I'd never seen. He had a funky-looking spring-loaded nailing tool that he hit with a rubber mallet. It drove special nails at the precise angle through the tongue of each piece of the flooring.
But that was the glory part. What's critical is that the material be given time to acclimate to your home. This means that the wood must be brought into the home and allowed to normalize with the house's temperature and humidity. This is a step often overlooked by rookies. If you don't let the wood acclimate, gaps may eventually form between the pieces. It can take days for the wood to become stable.
Professional hardwood installers know all sorts of tricks to ensure that squeaks don't happen. They use special nails that have tiny barbs and/or ribbing on the shaft that allow the nails to really bite into the subflooring.
You'll also see professionals install 15-pound felt paper under the strips of hardwood. This is an added touch that helps prevent vapor from entering the underside of the wood in case the wood is being installed over a crawlspace or a damp basement. The felt paper also helps, to a very small degree, with squeaking.
Have you thought about how you're going to deal with a subfloor that has humps and low spots in it? If you make a mistake, you'll absolutely end up with squeaks or gaps down the road. Professionals use a long straightedge to detect them. They fill the low spots with asphalt shingles to support the hardwood strips.
What are you going to do when you nail your first piece? How will you know it's perfectly straight? The entire floor builds off the first piece, so it must be correctly installed. The pros that worked for me carefully strung a line across the room and laid the first pieces exactly to it. It's important that the line hover just above the wood so that the pieces you install don't nudge it as you face nail them.
The initial layout of the flooring is very critical, especially if you're extending the hardwood into several rooms. You want to avoid cutting narrow strips next to any of the walls where the strips run parallel to the walls. Be sure on the where the wood runs parallel that you don't install it tight to the drywall or plaster. Leave a gap that's as thick as the baseboard that is on the wall. The bottom of the baseboard needs to be slightly above the flooring so that the wood can expand into the void space in case humidity soars.
Tim Carter is a columnist for Tribune Media Services. He can be contacted through his Web site, askthebuilder.com.
The Obama administration wants to raise fees for borrowers and require larger down payments for home loans as part of a long-term effort to restructure the nation's housing market. But it warned that these measures could boost mortgage rates and make it harder for home buyers to secure the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, a mainstay of American home buying for decades.
In a long-awaited white paper, the administration said it intends to wind down the federal mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and curtail the Federal Housing Administration to help reduce the government's outsized role in mortgage funding.
The housing finance system, which has ensured that Americans can get home loans, came crashing down in the financial crisis, helping fuel millions of foreclosures and the recession.
"I think it's absolutely the case that the U.S. government provided too much support for housing, too strong incentives for investment in housing," Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Friday during a speech at the Brookings Institution. He noted that in addition to those fundamental mistakes, the government "allowed a huge amount of basic mortgage business to shift where there was no regulation or oversight."
But in proposing a strategy for the future, administration officials acknowledged they are walking a tightrope. Any steps that dial back government support too dramatically - making mortgages more expensive - could extend the housing decline.
Geithner said that a new housing finance system without Fannie and Freddie could take seven years to put in place, suggesting it might fall in part to future administrations.
"We have to see the process of repair in the housing market completed," Geithner said.
The white paper focuses on a series of short steps to increase fees and down-payment requirements. The administration hopes these measures will allow banks to more effectively compete in offering loans without government guarantees.
The report offers three options for replacing Fannie and Freddie. They include creating a new government agency that would continue to insure mortgages or a new agency that would step in only during times of crisis. Each, however, could put taxpayers at more risk of having to bail out the mortgage market during big declines.
The most drastic option would end government backing for home loans beyond the FHA. But the administration warned that this measure could affect access to credit for many potential homeowners. It could boost mortgage rates the most, the officials said, and it could make it harder for community banks to compete in the housing market.
In not offering a single long-term vision for the housing finance system, the administration sought to avoid a contentious clash with Republicans, who often have portrayed the mortgage giants as the chief culprit in the financial crisis. Republicans are likely to agree with the administration's plan to reduce taxpayer support for mortgages over time.
But Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement that while the proposal includes elements that GOP lawmakers have embraced in the past, it "isn't a plan to move us forward, but rather a collection of opinions to consider. What's needed is a real plan, and we intend to sit down with administration officials to find common ground ... we need legislation that protects taxpayers from further losses and future bailouts and builds a stable housing finance system based on private capital."
BOUNDARIES:The Intercounty Connector to the north, Old Gunpowder Road to the east, Briggs Chaney Road on the south and west. A few streets lie just east of Old Gunpowder and west of Briggs Chaney roads.
SCHOOLS: In Prince George's County, public schools that serve Cross Creek include Vansville Elementary School, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and High Point High School. In Montgomery County, the schools are Greencastle Elementary School, Benjamin Banneker Middle School, and the Northeast Consortium, which offers students the choice of James Hubert Blake, Springbrook or Paint Branch high schools.
HOME SALES: Sixteen homes in the Cross Creek community have sold in the past 12 months, according to Sharon DeGrouchy, an agent with Long & Foster, with prices ranging from $330,000 (a townhouse) to $620,000. Recently, four properties were on the market, including two short sales, with prices ranging from $350,000 to $695,000. Four homes were under contract, including two short sales and a foreclosure. Prices ranged from $329,000 to $589,000.
TRANSIT: Several Metrobus lines drop off and pick up passengers at the Briggs Chaney Park and Ride in Montgomery County, about five minutes from Cross Creek. Some of those buses travel to the Silver Spring Metro station. Montgomery County's Ride-On Route 21 also travels along Briggs Chaney and Fairland roads and stops at the Briggs Chaney Park and Ride. Commuter buses to Washington also stop at the Burtonsville Park and Ride, about 15 minutes away in Montgomery County. MARC commuter trains stop at the Muirkirk station, about 10 minutes away, off U.S. Route 1 in Prince George's County. The Greenbelt and Silver Spring Metro stations are 15 to 20 minutes by car.
WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE: Neighborhood parks, swimming pool, tennis courts.
WITHIN 15-20 MINUTES: Fairland Sports and Aquatics Complex, the Gardens Ice House skating rink, Laurel Regional Hospital, the University of Maryland, the National Agricultural Research Center, the Food and Drug Administration, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, shopping areas in Laurel and Silver Spring.
The Obama administration outlined its plan to phase out government support of the U.S. housing finance system - and wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.¶ The plan - a sharp change of course after a decades-long campaign to extend homeownership to more Americans - would shift more of the burden to the private sector. Underwriting standards for home loans would tighten. Borrowers could face higher rates and fees as well as bigger down payments.¶ Any steps that dial back government support too dramatically - making mortgages more expensive - could extend the housing decline and lock buyers out of the market. The blueprint emphasized the importance of rental options.
Business
New York Stock Exchange was near agreement to be acquired by Deutsche Borse in a $25 billion deal that would symbolize New York's fading role in global finance.
J.P. Morgan will accept gold as collateral in some transactions, putting the metal on par with triple-A-rated Treasurys.
Toyota electronics were absolved of fault by federal highway safety officials who said driver error was to blame for most accidents involving sudden acceleration issues. Pedals and floor mats were found to have contributed. LaHood: "Toyotas are safe to drive."
Twitter's estimated valuations of as much as $10 billion raise speculation of a tech sector bubble. Twitter made $45 million in revenue in 2010.
HSBC and Lloyds will begin reporting results on a quarterly basis, joining banks across Europe in a move toward greater transparency.
Investment banks say that banks have overcharged them for currency trades.
Nokia and Microsoft agreed to partner. The software giant's Windows Phone will be adapted as the operating system for Nokia's mobile phones. Nokia's stock dropped on the news.
Hewlett-Packard outlined plans to sell a tablet computer and smartphones using Palm software after acquiring Palm last year for $1.2 billion.
Chipotle, in a widening immigration investigation, let go hundreds of workers in Minnesota.
Alliant and an EADS unit plan to partner to pitch a new 300-foot commercial space rocket, called Liberty. Initial test flight as soon as 2013.
NFL offered hundreds of fans who went without seats at the Super Bowl tickets to the 2012 championship game.
