On June 18, 1923, the first Checker Cab rolls off the line at the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Morris Markin, founder of Checker Cab, was born in Smolensk, Russia, and began working when he was only 12 years old. At 19, he immigrated to the United States and moved to Chicago, where two uncles lived. After opening his own tailor’s shop, Markin also began running a fleet of cabs and an auto body shop, the Markin Auto Body Corporation, in Joliet, Illinois. In 1921, after loaning $15,000 to help a friend’s struggling car manufacturing business, the Commonwealth Motor Company, Markin absorbed Commonwealth into his own enterprise and…

By The Associated Press June 16, 2011 (AP) Key dates in the history of IBM: —1911: The company that would later become IBM is formed as the Computing Tabulating Recording Co. —1914: Thomas Watson Sr., a former executive at National Cash Register Co., joins the company. Watson becomes the company’s guiding force over the next four decades. —1924: Company renamed International Business Machines. —1936: Helps administer the new Social Security program with its punch card system. —1944: The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), the first machine able to execute long computation automatically, is presented to Harvard. Eight feet high and 50 feet long, the electromechanical switches of “Mark I” could…

Summary Box: 100 Years of “Think” at IBM By The Associated Press June 16, 2011 (AP) THE MILESTONE: International Business Machines Corp. turns 100 on Thursday. THE CONTRIBUTIONS: Everyday tasks of technology, such as computer storage drives, bar codes used in supermarkets and the magnetic stripes on the back of credit cards. THE FUTURE: While IBM’s Watson attracted buzz by beating two human “Jeopardy!” champions, the company wants to put it to real-world use as a medical diagnostic tool and work on other big data projects.

June 16, 2011 Eric Parnell http://seekingalpha.com/article/275284-stock-correction-may-have-much-further-to-go The stock market is vastly overvalued. While much has been made over the last few weeks about the current market correction, it’s merely a scratch on the surface when put into perspective. Sure we’re down 8%, but we’re still above the levels from just a few months ago in mid March. And we’re still positive for the year and 4% above the market peak at the end of QE1. From a historical view, the market is well above where it should be at this stage of the current secular cycle. And things could get very unpleasant for stocks if the underlying forces supporting the…

This article was published in November of 2007 http://genxfinance.com/a-visual-history-of-the-stock-market-from-1996-2007/ With the current volatility in the market, it causes people to begin questioning their investments and wondering where we’re headed. In my profession, I have to work with uneasy clients daily, and it can be difficult to remind them that the stock market is constantly moving and generally goes through cycles. The market can’t go up indefinitely, nor will it go down indefinitely. More often than not, we’ll see periods of growth followed by periods of volatility or sideways movement, and then have a period of falling stocks that is followed by more volatility before the cycle repeats itself. A Glimpse…

By Sean Gardiner and Alison Fox JUNE 15, 2011, 1:36 PM ET http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/06/15/harlem-teen-killed-after-argument/tab/print/ A 15-year-old Manhattan boy who had survived a shooting just seven months ago was shot and killed on a the sidewalk outside the Peaceful Valley community garden in East Harlem late Tuesday night. Family members said that Juan Otero was heading to a bodega across the street from their 117th Street home when he was shot three times in his right arm around 9:36 p.m. Tuesday night. A law enforcement official said that one of the bullets traveled through his right arm and into his stomach. He was pronounced dead at Metropolitan Hospital Center. A security camera…

By the CNN Wire Staff June 16, 2011 7:56 a.m. EDT http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/15/texas.giffords/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1 (CNN) — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been released from the hospital in Houston, Texas, and expects to begin outpatient treatment soon, according to a statement released Wednesday by TIRR Memorial Hermann. Giffords was shot in the head January 8 during a mass shooting incident in Arizona. She is expected to move into her home in League City, Texas, where she will continue rehabilitation therapy. “We are very excited that she has reached the next phase of her rehabilitation and can begin outpatient treatment,” said Dr. Gerard Francisco, the hospital’s chief medical officer. Francisco will continue to supervise…

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/06/14/another-delay-for-museum-of-african-art/ By Pia Catton The opening of the Museum for African Art’s new building has been delayed again. The museum, which will be located at Fifth Ave and 110th Street, will now open in late 2012 instead of the previously announced late 2011. The Museum for African Art decided to delay the final stage of construction in order to meet its fund-raising goal, according to a statement by museum president Elsie McCabe Thompson. Though the museum had raised $86.3 million, it has had to raise its fund-raising goal from $90 million to $95 million due to increased construction costs. Devoted to the art of Africa and the African Diaspora, the museum was…

EUROPE 22 March 2011 Last updated at 21:44 ET By Steven EkeEditor, BBC Russian Service At the end of this week, the BBC’s Russian Service will close its radio frequencies for good. The Russian Service began broadcasting to the Soviet Union in 1946 and quickly established a reputation with Soviet listeners, in the brief period before the onset of the Cold War. From 1949 until 1987, the jamming of the signal by the Soviet authorities consumed vast amounts of money and technical expertise. For many years, a significant part of the USSR’s entire radio broadcasting system was devoted to blocking transmissions from abroad. The BBC’s Russian Service was blocked selectively and varyingly.…

By Nick Neyland http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/06/10/a-trip-to-green-wood-cemetery-after-dark-without-dying-to-get-in/ JUNE 10, 2011, 1:08 PM ET Benjamin Norman for The Wall Street Journal Green-Wood Cemetery’s catacombs, which date back to the early 1850s, will be open to visitors during Saturday’s moonlight tour Green-Wood Cemetery has strict rules that keep visitors out after dark, but the historic burial ground will be crawling with the curious Saturday night for a rare moonlight tour. Cemetery historian Jeff Richman leads the tour, joined by accordionists hired to provide musical accompaniment.Visitors are encouraged to bring a flashlight to navigate the nearly 200-year-old cemetery’s winding pathways under a full moon. “People obviously like the idea of a cemetery in the dark,” Richman…