Liquigas Cycling Team New Shoes

These shoes are truly awesome. They are light weight, made of carbon and the design is superb, and they are a limited edition production.

Tour Méditerranéen Cyclist Jon Tiernan-Locke Wins

Jon Tiernan-Locke (Endura Racing) stormed up the Col de Garde in a solo effort on a weather-shortened closing stage to win both the final stage and overall title at the Tour Méditerranéen. Daniel Navarro (Saxo Bank) was second on the day, 17 seconds back, with Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone) third in the same time.
Tiernan-Locke  claimed overall victory after starting the stage in third place on general classification, ten seconds down on Garmin-Barracuda’s Michel Kreder, who had won the second and third stages.

FINAL GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1	Jonathan Tiernan-Locke (GBr) Endura Racing	10:48:42
2	Michel Kreder (Ned) Garmin – Barracuda	0:00:27
3	Daniel Navarro (Spa) Team Saxo Bank	0:00:31
4	Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone	0:00:33
5	Angel Madrazo (Spa) Movistar Team	0:00:42
6	Romain Hardy (Fra) Bretagne – Schuller	0:00:47

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Rome drops bid for 2020 Olympics – MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — One casualty of Italy’s financial meltdown appears to be its bid for the 2020 Olympics as Rome has dropped its attempt to host the quadrennial games, the Associated Press reports. Italian Premier Mario Monti said Tuesday, the day before the deadline for formal submission of Olympic bids, that spending the estimated $12.5 billion it would cost would be an irresponsible way to spend tax dollars, the wire service noted. Still in the running are Tokyo; Madrid; Istanbul; Doha, Qatar; and Baku, Azerbaijan.

From: http://ping.fm/hMhKZ

Christ Hospital in Jersey City files for bankruptcy

Christ Hospital, the nonprofit Palisade Avenue medical center that has been a mainstay in the Jersey City Heights since 1872, has filed for bankruptcy.

The news comes less than a week after the hospital’s board, which had been hoping to be acquired by for-profit California chain Prime Healthcare Services, said the filing might be necessary.

Hospital CEO Peter Kelly pledged in a statement that Christ Hospital will continue to provide “state-of-the-art health care.”

“Christ Hospital has been a central part of Hudson County for nearly 140 years, and the residents of Hudson County should know that Christ Hospital will continue to fulfill its mission as a community healthcare provider,” Kelly said.

Last week, The Jersey Journal reported that Prime, a controversial healthcare chain that runs 14 hospitals in California, had withdrawn its bid to acquire Christ Hospital. Hospital officials, when they announced the proposed acquisition last summer, said it was vital to the long-term financial stability of Christ Hospital.

Prime withdrew its bid after it became clear that the community wants Christ Hospital to remain a nonprofit, Kelly said last week.

From: http://ping.fm/T3r86

Goodby Silverstein Will Cut Up To 200 Jobs

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners will cut between 150 and 200 of the firm’s almost 700-person workers, a source tells us, following a note to employees yesterday in which founder Jeff Goodby said he would be “adjusting the size of our staff.”

He told AgencySpy yesterday:

“Today, we at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners have begun adjusting the size of our staff in the wake of losing Sprint and parting ways with Hewlett-Packard. We don’t divulge the number of people or the percentage of our staff affected, but it’s commensurate with the numbers you’d have for accounts this size.”

From: http://ping.fm/45GHn

Frontier Airlines to cut about 450 Milwaukee-area employees

Just over two years after announcing plans to double its local workforce, Frontier Airlines said Monday it will cut about 450 of its roughly 1,000 employees in Milwaukee.
The move comes as Frontier has steadily lost market share at Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport since taking over Midwest Airlines in 2009.
Frontier’s parent company, Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings, is seeking a buyer for the money-losing carrier.

The swift decline of Denver-based Frontier happens as the economy takes longer than expected to recover, and Frontier faces strong competition in both Denver and Milwaukee, its two hubs.
At Denver International Airport, Frontier is being squeezed by United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, said Scott Hamilton, who operates Leeham Co., an aviation industry consulting firm based in Issaquah, Wash.
At Mitchell International Air port, Southwest and AirTran Airways, both low-fare carriers, have been taking market share from Frontier.
At the very least, Frontier’s Milwaukee operations will be greatly diminished, which Hamilton said will likely bring increased airfares for Milwaukee travelers.
Frontier, in a filing with the state Department of Workforce Development, said up to 446 Milwaukee-area employees will be affected by the job cuts, to occur between April 15 and April 30.
About 230 employees are flight crew members who will be reassigned to bases outside Milwaukee, the filing said.
Some of the flight crews don’t live in the Milwaukee area, commuting here via flights from around the country. But other employees – including maintenance workers, gate agents and baggage handlers – live in southeastern Wisconsin.
Once the flight crew transfers and other job shifts are made, the actual number of eliminated jobs is expected to be between 165 and 180, said Frontier spokesman Peter Kowalchuk.
The news comes just four days after Frontier announced it will eliminate five nonstop routes from Milwaukee. Those cuts will reduce Frontier’s daily departing flights out of Mitchell International from 32 to 18.
Effective April 16, the company will drop nonstop flights from Milwaukee to Dallas/Fort Worth; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Kansas City, Mo.; Philadelphia; and Phoenix. In addition, Milwaukee-to-Newark, N.J., service will be dropped effective April 1.
Those cuts came after earlier service reductions over the past several months. Last summer, Frontier had 67 daily flights departing Mitchell International.
Frontier ended 2011 with 29% market share at Mitchell International, down from 33% at the end of 2010, according to airport data. (That 2010 data includes the market share for Midwest Airlines, which was being merged into Frontier by the carriers’ common owner, Republic Airways).
Meanwhile, AirTran’s market share was 32%, up from 30%, while Southwest had 9% of the market, up from 8%. Southwest last year acquired AirTran, but the two carriers are still flying separately until the AirTran operations are integrated into the Southwest system.
That’s a far cry from when Midwest Airlines dominated travel at Mitchell International with market share of around 50%.
Midwest was sold in early 2008 to TPG Capital and Northwest Airlines after AirTran’s hostile takeover attempt failed. Under TPG’s ownership, Midwest cut service from Mitchell International and other airports, and cut hundreds of jobs after fuel prices spiked and demand for air travel declined.
In 2009, Republic Airways, best known for operating shorter flights for Delta and other large carriers, bought both Midwest and Frontier.
In November of that year, Republic CEO Bryan Bedford said Midwest’s lower costs – achieved in part by replacing Midwest veteran flight crews with lower-paid Republic pilots and flight attendants – would allow the airline to compete more aggressively with AirTran, Southwest and others.
Bedford said Midwest would add up to 800 jobs, roughly doubling its Milwaukee-area workforce, with some of the flights cut under TPG Capital’s ownership to be restored.
Joined by Mayor Tom Barrett and then-Gov. Jim Doyle, Bedford made that announcement at a Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce event, attended by around 1,300 people, at the Bradley Center. Bedford estimated that about half of the 800 new jobs would involve relocations of Frontier and Republic employees, with the remaining 400 openings filled by Milwaukee-area residents.
Several months later, Bedford announced that although those growth plans would proceed, the Midwest name would be eliminated in favor of combining Midwest and Frontier under the Frontier name.
But those plans faltered, with Republic losing $13.8 million in 2010 and posting a $28.3 million loss during the first three quarters of 2011. Bedford said in November that the company was looking to sell its troubled Frontier operation.
Republic could have received up to $27 million in Wisconsin tax credits through 2021 if it followed its plans to maintain and create jobs. Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which oversees the tax credit program, has not released any of Republic’s tax credits, said agency spokesman Tom Thieding.
“The loss of 500 jobs is a setback for the region,” Barrett said in a statement. “My hope is that other airlines will step in and fill the void in this critically important market.”