Paragliding grandma breaks record

20 March 2012 Last updated at 22:31 GMT  Utah great-great-grandmother Mary Hardison is official the oldest woman to do a tandem paraglide A great-great grandmother has become the oldest woman to do a tandem paraglide, after she took to the skies for her 101st birthday last year.

American Mary Hardison was inspired to give paragliding a go when her 75-year old son Allen took up the sport.

Guinness World Records confirmed that she had broken the record on Tuesday, beating a 100-year-old Cypriot woman.

"Just because you are old doesn't mean you have to sit on your duff all day," she told Reuters.

Ms Hardison flew with an instructor in September 2011 while four generations of her family cheered her on.

To celebrate her 90th birthday, she rode all of the adult rides at Disneyland. For her 102nd, she hopes to try out a mountain slide in her home state of Utah.

Ms Hardison told Associated Press: "My desire is for the elderly to keep on going. Do things as long as you are physically able. Be positive. Friends don't like a grumpy person."

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Messi breaks Barca scoring record

Lionel Messi has broken Barcelona's 60-year-old goal-scoring record with a hat-trick in a 5-3 win over Granada at the Nou Camp in La Liga on Tuesday.

Messi equalled the record with a volley off a post in the 17th minute and broke the record with a lob over the goalkeeper in the 68th minute.

The Argentine's third goal came four minutes from time when he rounded the keeper after a pass from Dani Alves.

His record target was revised down to 232 from 235 after a newspaper study.

Barcelona's Centre of Documentation and Studies and La Vanguardia newspaper conducted joint research to verify the scoring record of previous record-holder Cesar Rodriguez in the 1950s.

The study showed he had scored three goals fewer than was previously thought.

The club had said: "It's worth noting that Cesar Rodriguez is the club's all-time top goalscorer in official matches, but the absolute record belongs to Paulino Alcantara, who scored 369 goals in 357 official and friendly matches."

2007-08: 16 goals 2008-09: 38 2009-10: 47 2010-11: 53 2011-12: 54 to date Messi, the 24-year-old World Player of the Year, who is in his eighth season with Barca, has now scored 54 goals in all competitions this season.

He is also now the top-scorer in La Liga this season with 34 goals from 27 games, two ahead of Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo. Athletico Madrid's Falcao is third with 17 goals.

"We have to congratulate Messi, he has scored so many goals and is only 24, he does not just score ordinary goals but great goals and we hope he gets lots more for us, we can compare him perhaps the Michael Jordan [American basketball legend] of football," said Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola.

"There are no players capable of dominating a sport with such superiority. In every sport there has existed only one player that can be considered as somebody unique. And this is the case. Yes, Messi can be compared to Michael Jordan."

Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdez said of his team-mate: "Messi is defining an era. He is the best."

Who does Messi admire most?

He set the new record in Barcelona's win over Granada which moves the Catalan side to within five points of league leaders Real Madrid, who they face at the Nou Camp on 22 April.

Ernest Macia, of public Radio Catalunya, said it was a "historic evening" in Barcelona.

"Messi is exceptional, there will not be another player like him," said Macia.

"In Barcelona, people are used to successes of the team and of Messi but tonight, with the sight of history, many people will remember the night.

"I've heard many cars now on the streets celebrating that Messi has done it."

Rodriguez played mainly for Barcelona, winning five La Liga championships in 13 years with them.

He was the league's highest scorer in 1948-49 (28 in 24 games) and topped Barca's goal charts for seven consecutive seasons.

The forward, who also coached Barcelona in 1963-64, was famous for his ability to score goals from corners.

He scored six goals in 12 appearances for the Spanish national side between 1945 and 1952.

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US poverty rate hits record high

14 September 2011 Last updated at 01:43 GMT President Obama last week launched a new jobs plan to try to increase employment opportunities The number of Americans living in poverty rose to 46.2 million last year, nearly one in six people, according to the US Census Bureau's annual report.

The 2010 data shows the poverty rate at 15.1%, from 14.3% in 2009. The number of Americans without health insurance also rose slightly to 49.9 million.

The poverty rate was the highest since 1983, and tied with the level in 1993.

The number of Americans living below the poverty line has now risen for four years in a row.

The US definition of poverty is an annual income of $22,314 (£14,129), or less for a family of four, and $11,139 for a single person.

More poor children

The Census Bureau data also showed that poverty among black and Hispanic people was much higher than for the overall US population last year - at 27.4% and 26.6% respectively.

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Mr Obama is portraying a series of pretty partisan, controversial proposals as plain common sense that no-one of good will could resist”

End Quote Mark Mardell BBC North America editor Outside of the poverty line, the average annual US household income fell 2.3% in 2010 to $49,445 (£31,228).

Even younger Americans were also strongly affected. Twenty-two percent of those under 18 were living under the poverty line - up from from 20.7% in 2009.

Reacting to the data, the Children's Leadership Council, an advocacy group, said: "The rising numbers of children living in poverty is a direct result of the choices made by political leaders who put billionaires before kids. America's children should be our top priority."

Among regions, the South had the highest poverty rate at 16.9% and the highest percentage without health insurance, 19.1%.

'Nobody hiring'

Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7%, followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona.

Author and columnist Tom Friedman says the US faces either a bad decade or a bad century

At the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6%.

The slight rise in the number of people without health insurance - up by nearly one million - was mostly caused by losses of employer-provided medical cover in the weakened economy.

Congress passed a health overhaul last year to deal with rising numbers of the uninsured, but the main provisions do not take effect until 2014.

The figures compound a stagnant US jobs report in August, when the unemployment rate was at 9.1% for the second straight month.

In Fort Washington, Maryland, mother-of-five Nekisha Brooks told of her struggle to find work since being laid off from her job at telecommunications firm AT&T several months ago.

Ms Brooks told the Associated Press news agency: "I've been putting in job applications every day and calling around, from housekeeping to customer service to admin or waitresses, but nobody seems to be hiring right now."

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Chinese imports hit record high

12 September 2011 Last updated at 00:35 GMT  China has been trying to rebalance its export dependent economy to sustain growth China's imports hit a record monthly high in August, indicating a strong domestic demand despite concerns of a global economic slowdown.

Imports surged by 30.2% from a year earlier to $155.6bn (£98bn), government data released over the weekend showed.

Exports rose by 24.5% resulting in a trade surplus of $17.8bn, down from a $31.5bn surplus in the previous month.

China is the world's second-largest economy.

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Microsoft reports record revenue

 Microsoft's business division, which includes Office software - is its biggest seller The US technology giant Microsoft said its annual revenues hit a record of $69.94bn (£43.4bn).

Sales of the company's Xbox 360 videogame console and its Office software helped fuel the growth.

Net income at the world's biggest software maker jumped 23% to 23.15bn for the year.

The figures, which beat forecasts, showed final quarter revenues reached a record high of $17.37bn, leading to profits of $5.87bn.

Sales rose 8% to $17.37 billion, a boosted chiefly by sales of Office, Xbox and server software behind Microsoft's push into cloud computing.

Microsoft's business division, which sells the Office suite of programs, including Outlook, SharePoint and Excel, was the company's biggest seller in the quarter, increasing sales by 7% to $5.8bn.

The company's online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN internet portal, increased sales by 16.5% to $662m, but saw losses increase to $728m as it struggles to fight competitor Google.

One weaker spot was sales of its widely-used Windows product, which are slowing as tablet PC sales eat into demand for traditional PCs.

On Wednesday, chipmaker Intel warned that PC sales would not be as strong as it had expected this year.

Microsoft is itself expected to enter the tablet market next year with the launch of its next operating system, code-named Windows 8, which will be compatible with the low-power chips commonly used by tablet and mobile phone makers.

Microsoft is the latest technology company to exceed profit expectations.

Google, Apple and IBM all reported strong earnings recently.

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Apple in record sales and profits

19 July 2011 Last updated at 21:41 GMT

iPhone sales more than doubled - again Apple's latest profits soared past expectations as sales of its best-known iPhone and iPad products more than doubled.

Net income was $7.31bn (£4.6bn) in the three months to 25 June, 125% higher than a year earlier and a record quarterly profit for the firm. Revenue was $28.6bn, also a quarterly record.

Apple sold more than 20 million iPhones in the quarter and 9.25 million iPads.

However, iPod sales continued to slip, down by 20% to 7.54 million units.

The results assuaged concerns about the supply of the iPad 2, partly because of parts supply interruptions caused by Japan's tsunami and earthquake in March.

Lion

Apple chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, said: "We are extremely pleased with our performance.

"Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $25bn."

Mr Oppenheimer also said that Lion, the new version of the Mac OS X operating system, will go on sale Wednesday.

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The company is turning into one of the most extraordinary cash-generating machines ever built, and just keeps on growing”

End Quote The Lion software mimics some of the features of the iPhone and iPad interface.

The company has a reputation for being conservative with its forecasts.

Shares jumped 5.3% in extended after-hours trading to their highest for a year.

Battles

The price had suffered after its founder and Chief Executive, Steve Jobs, took a long-term break last January for medical reasons.

The future stewardship of the company remains an open question. On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal was reporting that several Apple board members had discussed a successor to Mr Jobs, and had talked about the matter with at least one head of a high-profile tech company.

Another uncertainty for the company is a web of patent battles with rivals.

It claims Taiwanese rival HTC has infringed its patents, with HTC claiming a number of infringements against Apple.

Apple is also in dispute over the rights to technology with South Korea's Samsung and US competitor Motorola.

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