Duke Energy Anticipates Ohio Coal Plant Retirement.

M2 PRESSWIRE-July 18, 2011-: Duke Energy Anticipates Ohio Coal Plant Retirement(C)1994-2011 M2 COMMUNICATIONS

RDATE:15072011

NEW RICHMOND, OHIO -- Duke Energy Ohio anticipates it will retire all six coal-fired generation units at its W.C. Beckjord Station, southwest of Cincinnati, by Jan. 1, 2015, as a result of a proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule.

Duke Energy Ohio announced its intent to retire Beckjord Station's coal-fired units 1 through 6 - totaling 862 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity - in its 2011 Resource Plan filing with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) on July 15.

The company plans to retire the coal-fired units at the nearly 60-year-old plant in 2015 due to EPA's recently proposed Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule. EPA intends to finalize the rule in Nov. 2011, with required emission control technologies to be installed by Jan. 1, 2015.

The Beckjord Station decision is largely based on the age of the coal-fired units and the prohibitive cost - to which our customers would be exposed - of implementing the new MACT technology requirements. The anticipated retirement date is contingent on potential changes to the implementation for EPA's MACT rule and other environmental regulations.

Barring a change to plant economics - including variables like fuel costs, power prices, and capital and maintenance expenses - Duke Energy intends to continue operating the coal-fired units through the anticipated 2015 retirement date to help meet regional demand for electricity.

As outlined in its 2011 Resource Plan, Duke Energy Ohio plans to meet demand following the retirement of Beckjord's coal-fired units through the purchase of electricity on the competitive wholesale market or the construction/acquisition of natural gas-fired combined-cycle generating assets.

No determination has been made as to which path Duke Energy Ohio will pursue.

The construction of the W.C. Beckjord Station was announced on Nov. 10, 1948, at a location 18 miles upstream of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. The site was dedicated on June 12, 1952, with the first 100-MW unit in commercial operation. Five additional coal-fired units were added by 1969. Four oil-fired combustion turbines (CTs) were added in the early 1970s.

Duke Energy Ohio owns 100 percent of the first five generating units at the station, and jointly owns unit 6 (37.5 percent ownership) with American Electric Power Co. (12.5 percent) and Dayton Power and Light Co. (50 percent).

Duke Energy Ohio owns all four CT units, which are capable of producing 244 MW of electricity and are primarily used for generating power during periods of high demand. The company has no plans to retire the CT units.

Today, Beckjord Station employs approximately 120 Duke Energy personnel.

Some employees might be offered the opportunity to work at other Duke Energy plants. The company will work closely with employees and unions to determine potential options for impacted workers. The anticipated retirement date of Beckjord's coal-fired units is contingent on potential changes to the implementation timeline for EPA's MACT rule.

Duke Energy launched a website - www.duke-energy.com/beckjord - to provide additional information and updates.

About Duke Energy Ohio

Duke Energy Ohio's operations provide electric service to approximately 685,000 customers and natural gas service to approximately 400,000 customers.

Duke Energy is one of the largest electric power holding companies in the United States. Its regulated utility operations serve approximately 4 million customers located in five states in the Southeast and Midwest, representing a population of approximately 12 million people. Its commercial power and international business segments own and operate diverse power generation assets in North America and Latin America, including a growing portfolio of renewable energy assets in the United States.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com .

CONTACT:

Media - 800-559-3853

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Leeds closes top deal after just one week.(Business)

LEEDS Building Society has closed its Online Access 4 account, which pays 2.44 pc after tax (3.05 pc before tax).

The account -- one of the top deals on offer for those looking to run their account over the internet -- was on sale for just one week.

The top rate on these accounts now comes from Santander eSaver 3 at 2.4 pc (3 pc), including a variable rate bonus of 2 (2.5) percentage points payable for a year.

Chelsea BS has launched a toppaying, two-year cash Isa at 3.7pc taxfree fixed until July 31, 2013. Santander and Leeds BS also match this rate for two years, while Halifax pays 3.65pc.

The top one-year rate is 3.2pc taxfree from Cheshire, Derbyshire and Dunfermline building societies, all part of Nationwide. Northern Rock pays 3.1 pc over the internet fixed for one year or 3 pc through its branchbased and postal version.

With Norwich & Peterborough's new deal you earn 3.05 pc, but you need a minimum [pounds sterling]5,340 to open an account.

These one-year, fixed-rate cash Isa rates are well below the top deals on taxable fixed-rate bonds, where you can earn 3.5pc before tax with Yorkshire, Barnsley and FirstSave and 3.4 pc with Tesco Bank.

Savers looking for cash Isas will be better off in the top easy-access accounts where they do not have to tie their money up for a year.

AA Savings, part of Halifax, pays 3.35 pc on its Internet Access Isa and Santander 3.3pc on its Flexible Isa 3 -- although you can't transfer your existing cash Isas into these accounts.

Perrigo Announces FDA Final Approval for Minoxidil Foam - Generic Equivalent to Men's Rogaine[R] Foam.

Perrigo Company (Nasdaq: PRGO; TASE) announced that it has received final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its abbreviated new drug application for over-the-counter (OTC) Minoxidil Foam, a generic version of Men's Rogaine[R] Foam (see also U.S. Food and Drug Administration).

Perrigo had been sued for patent infringement by Stiefel Research Australia Pty. Ltd., a GSK Company, when it submitted its Paragraph IV ANDA. Under the terms of the settlement reached between the parties in February 2011, Perrigo can launch the generic version of Men's Rogaine[R] Foam in the U.S. on March 1, 2012, or earlier, under certain circumstances. The product will be entitled to 180 days of generic exclusivity upon launch.

Rogaine[R] (Minoxidil) Foam is used to regrow hair on the top of the scalp, and has annual sales of approximately $60 million, as measured by Information Resources, Inc.

Perrigo's Chairman and CEO Joseph C. Papa concluded, "This is another example of Perrigo's commitment to bring new products to market. Perrigo continues to deliver on its mission to provide quality, affordable healthcare to consumers."

Perrigo Company is a leading global healthcare supplier that develops, manufactures and distributes OTC and generic prescription (Rx) pharmaceuticals, infant formulas, nutritional products, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and pharmaceutical and medical diagnostic products. The Company is the world's largest store brand manufacturer of OTC pharmaceutical products and infant formulas. The Company's primary markets and locations of manufacturing and logistics operations are the United States, Israel, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Australia. Visit Perrigo on the Internet (http://www.perrigo.com).

Keywords: FDA, Generics, Legal Issues, Perrigo, Perrigo Company, Pharmaceutical Company, Regulatory Actions, U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This article was prepared by Biotech Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2011, Biotech Week via NewsRx.com.

KIDS WHO ARE SICK HAVE FEWER FRIENDS, STUDY FINDS.

WASHINGTON, DC -- The following information was released by the American Sociological Association:

By Randy Dotinga, Contributing Writer

Health Behavior News Service

A new study reveals that sick teens are more isolated than other kids, but they do not necessarily realize it and often think their friendships are stronger than they actually are.

The findings rely on surveys conducted before the Internet era made it easier for outsider kids to reach out to teens like themselves. Still, the study offers insight into the role that health plays in the relationships between people, said lead author and sociologist Steven Haas.

"Health is both a cause and a consequence of how many friends you have and how many people you have to support you," said Haas, an assistant professor at Arizona State University.

"For about 30 years, we've seen that people who have more friends -- and can get things from their friends like money or social support, all kinds of things that friends give each other -- are healthier and live longer. Few people have looked at the opposite side of the coin: Can the health of people affect the size of people's social networks and their place in them?"

In the new study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Haas and colleagues examined the results of a 1994-1996 survey of teenagers that asked them to name their friends. The study authors focused on 2,060 teens and explored the connections between them and their classmates.

Roughly, two-thirds of teens rated their health as "excellent "or "very good." The researchers looked most closely at the other kids - about a third of the total - who said their health was "good," "fair" or "poor." They might have suffered from conditions like asthma, obesity, deafness or blindness, Haas said.

"The less healthy kids are in smaller networks over time compared to their healthier peers," Haas said. "The kids don't perceive themselves as having fewer friends. If you ask them to list them, they list the same number of friends as the healthy kids do.

But if you ask the other kids who they're friends with, they're much less likely to nominate the sick kids as their friends." In essence, the sicker kids "tend to overstate how strong some of their friendships are," he said.

It gets worse. The sicker kids are 20 percent more likely to have no friends, Haas said. That means that no one in the school lists them as one of their friends, Haas said.

The study does not say which came first for the sicker kids -- isolation or poorer health. However, it is clear that "being sick doesn't make you fun to be around. It can be taxing on your friends and they have to do a lot of emotional support and try to make you feel better," Haas said. "At the same time, individuals who are depressed can't do the things we have to do to help our friends like support them and spend time with them."

Robert Crosnoe, a sociologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said he is a fan of the study. While it might seem obvious that good health boosts friendships and vice versa, he said, "it is not something scientists have done a good job of studying," largely because there are not good data.

He also pointed to a potential bonus to helping kids become healthier. "The findings," he said, "suggest that school health services, to the extent that they work, could have effects on high-school peer dynamics that adults find so complex and mysterious, not just health itself."

TERMS OF USE: This story is protected by copyright. When reproducing any material, including interview excerpts, attribution to the Health Behavior News Service, of the Center for Advancing Health is required.

E-LOAN Selected as Key Service Provider by Bank Rate Monitor.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 9, 1998--E-LOAN (http://www.eloan.com), the leading online mortgage broker, has been selected by Bank Rate Monitor (http://www.bankrate.com), the leading source of retail financial product information in the country, to provide consumers with the ability to implement product selections on its web site.

Bank Rate Monitor, which provides readers with access to the latest rates on savings, credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages, has partnered with E-LOAN to provide additional online mortgage qualification services to its already popular mortgage data. Through access to the co-branded mortgage center, consumers will have additional access to nationally and regionally recognized lenders.

"Bank Rate Monitor attracts consumers who are smart about managing their finances," said Doug Galen, vice president of sales and business development for E-LOAN. "Since a mortgage is one of the largest components of a household balance sheet, proactively taking advantage of the best rates and products can have a significant positive impact on peoples' net worth. By leveraging our technology and the Internet, E-LOAN and Bank Rate Monitor are helping consumers manage their mortgage debt in an easy and cost-effective way."

"Our goal is to help consumers make more informed decisions," said Sara Campbell, senior vice president of Bank Rate Monitor. "Expanding our offering to incorporate services that let them act on their decisions is a natural next step. E-LOAN gives people the power to lock-in rates and obtain a loan online, and we give them the power of information. This complementary combination serves a united purpose -- to get consumers the best deal."

Bank Rate Monitor provides unbiased data that helps consumers clarify their savings and loan choices in a marketplace flooded with financial products and services. Bank Rate Monitor combines over 20 years of data research and editorials about the banking industry that are licensed to national print and online publications. This data is generated for 21 products in 127 major markets through daily access to 3,000 banks, thrifts and credit unions across the country. These rates are scrutinized and updated weekly.

By linking to the Mortgage Center from Bank Rate Monitor's home page, consumers can access E-LOAN's personalized features to help determine which mortgage financing options best fit their needs. Interactive questionnaires provide custom mortgage quotes and recommendations based on an individual's financial situation. Customers can then use E-LOAN to get pre-qualified or pre-approved, and complete the entire loan transaction online.

E-LOAN's innovative use of technology drives inefficiencies out of the usual paper-based transaction and E-LOAN customers enjoy significant savings over the traditional mortgage process. At the same time, E-LOAN provides a personal customer service representative to each loan applicant, ensuring quick responses to questions and concerns. After a loan closes, customers can choose to use E-LOAN's monitoring services to track the volatile mortgage marketplace and be prepared to take advantage of future savings opportunities.

About E-LOAN

E-LOAN, Inc. (http://www.eloan.com) is the leading online mortgage broker where borrowers can compare, apply for and obtain home loans from the nation's leading lenders. E-LOAN saves borrowers as much as 75 percent on brokerage fees through the elimination of unnecessary transaction costs, while providing personalized customer service.

After closing a loan, E-LOAN can, at the customer's request, continue to send customized information about new products that become available, helping consumers turn a mortgage into a working financial asset. E-LOAN offers customers 24 hour a day online access to updated information on their loan status through its exclusive E-TrackSM service.

E-LOAN is the exclusive mortgage services provider to loan centers on many leading web sites, including E-Trade and Yahoo!. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., with loan processing offices in Dublin, Calif. E-LOAN's investment partners include Benchmark Capital and Technology Partners.

About Bank Rate Monitor

Bank Rate Monitor is the nation's leading source for retail financial product information. They offer more than 1,700 pages on the World Wide Web including timely rates and fees for: mortgages, home equity loans, auto loans, savings accounts, credit cards and online checking accounts, as well as ATM and online banking fees.

Relied upon by the Federal Reserve, national news media and financial institutions, Bank Rate Monitor has been tracking bank rates and the banking industry for more than 20 years. The editorial staff is comprised of dedicated and experienced professional journalists whose focus is spotting the latest trends in consumer rates, fees and new products.

CONTACT: E-LOAN, Inc.

Doug Galen, 650/847-3707

Doug@eloan.com

or

Niehaus Ryan Wong, Inc. (for E-LOAN)

Tiffany Kelley, 650/827-7079

Tiffany@nrwpr.com

or

Bank Rate Monitor's BANK ADVERTISING NEWS

Kelly Slimak, 561/630-1213

Kelly@xmail.bankrate.com

Samsung: content deals are complex.(HOME NETWORKS)

- Working on Its Own Wi-Fi Variant forWireless HD

Wireless Watch reports that Samsung says its biggest problem in getting Internet-delivered entertainment to its TV sets is the complicated business deals that content owners require, not the technology that's required.

Hyun-Suk Kim, VP of R&D for Samsung's television products, told a press conference this week, "Hardware-wise, everything is ready, but the problem is there are so many parties that want to have their own share, so it's complicated."

Samsung is working with Intel and Yahoo to use widgets as a way to bring Web content to PCs and TVs. Intel and Yahoo recently released a software developers "kit for the Widget Channel."

Wireless HD

On the matter of getting HD video wirelessly to TV sets, Kim said the company was working on several projects.

In July Samsung said it would support Amimon's WHDI technology, which uses a derivative of the 802.11n fast Wi-Fi approach. It has also reiterated its backing for SiBeam and the WirelessHD would-be standard, which uses the 60GHz band.

With approaches based on Wi-Fi extensions and 60GHz fighting it out, and possibly even converging--and with Ultra Wideband-based systems also likely to make a rejuvenated effort in a year or two--there would seem to be plenty of choices.

Notwithstanding, Samsung said this week that it is also defining its own variation on Wi-Fi for its digital TVs and could release the technology early next year.

He said Samsung is working mainly on 60GHz and its own Wi-Fi platform for short-term digital TV network releases, but remains interested in UWB and other options for the longer term.

H.J. HEINZ COMPANY ENTERS JOINT VENTURE IN SOUTH AFRICA

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ) today confirmed the formation of a joint venture between Heinz and Sentraalwes Co-operative, a farmers' co-operative based in Klerksdorp, South Africa. The joint venture, in which Heinz holds the majority share, will be known as Heinz Frozen Foods (Pty) Ltd. It is expected to be the first in a series of transactions.

Heinz also announced the formation of Heinz South Africa (Pty) Ltd, which will be the holding company for Heinz investments in Southern Africa. Rory W. Beattie, area director for South Africa, will serve as chairman of Heinz South Africa.

Heinz Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony J.F. O'Reilly said: "The formation of Heinz South Africa will provide us with growth opportunities as we make further investments in a variety of food categories where Heinz has world-class leadership. Heinz's operations are highlighted in Africa by our successful Zimbabwean business. South Africa, with a population of 42 million and where our brand name has remained popular among consumers, is a promising market for Heinz."

The joint venture will make Heinz a leading processor of frozen chips in South Africa for grocery and foodservice customers. The affiliate's product lines are expected to expand with the addition of new units and businesses. Heinz is the biggest producer of these products in New Zealand and the United States.

Heinz is the largest food company in neighboring Zimbabwe, with Olivine Industries with more than 1,500 employees. A joint venture with the Zimbabwean government, Olivine produces vegetable oils, margarines, soaps and Heinz-branded products, such as canned beans, vegetables and soup.

Heinz also has an edible oils and soap business in neighboring Botswana. In Ghana, its StarKist affiliate operates a tuna cannery.

/delval/

     -0-                           9/25/95 

/EDITORS' ADVISORY: H.J. Heinz Company press releases are available at no charge through PR Newswire's Company News On-Call fax service and on PRN's Web site. For a menu of available H.J. Heinz Company press releases or to retrieve a specific release, call 800-758-5804, ext. 402575, or http://www.prnewswire.com on the Internet./

/CONTACT: D. Edward I. Smyth, VP - Corp. Affairs, 412-456-5780, or Debora S. Foster, Gen. Mgr. - Corp. Communications, 412-456-5778, both of H.J. Heinz; or John E. Kennedy, or L. Michael Kelly, Jr., 412-456-3586, or 412-456-3840, both of Ketchum Public Relations, for H.J. Heinz/

(HNZ)

CO: H.J. Heinz Company; Sentraalwes Co-operative; Heinz Frozen Foods

(Pty) Ltd.; Heinz South Africa ST: Pennsylvania IN: FOD SU: JVN

CD -- PG003 -- 2022 09/25/95 08:33 EDT