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cheap polo shirts, frames made of graphite and graphite blended with other material, such as Kevlar were produced.

Other changes were in the dimensions of the head size. Light, oversize racquets weighing 10 or 11 ounces, with a typical head size of 110 square inches became very popular. These changes made the game much easier for lower level players, and helped the “tennis boom” from the late 1970’s through the early 1980’s. Many top players found the racquets improved their play as well.

Since then, manufacturers have offered almost endless combinations of materials and designs in an attempt to further improve racquet performance. Some examples are: light racquets with heavy or “hammer” heads; “ Chaussures Sports.widebody” racquets with thicker or tapered heads and shafts; racquets with gigantic heads up to 145 square inches; exotic racquet head shapes, such as triangles, hexagons and fans; extra long racquets, ranging up to an amazing 32 inches in length; ultra light racquets weighing as little as 8 and 1/2 ounces, strung. New materials, such as boron and titanium have constantly been introduced and combined in different amounts with:

nike tn aluminum, fiberglass and graphite.

Few high level players have adopted the more extreme designs. However, the new racquet technology has been widely accepted in competitive and recreational tennis. It is no longer even possible to buy a “conventional” wooden frame racquets in sports stores.

Most professional players play with graphite frames with a head size ranging between 85 and 110 square inches. Increasingly, pro players have experimented with or switched to racquets that are 28 inches in length. This is an inch more than the conventional 27 inch frames of a few years ago. A few players, mainly on women’s tours, have also switched to mild “widebodies”, racquets with thicker or tapered beams.

For most of the history of tennis, there were almost no limitations placed on racquet dimensions by regulatory authorities. The only limits were that the surface of the racquet should be flat, and consist (made up) of a pattern of crossed strings of generally uniform density (thickness), free of “attached objects” other than those to limit vibration or reduce wear. Recently, the ever more extreme designs have lead the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to limit the frame dimensions. As of January 1997, the length of the frame was limited to 29 inches for professional play. This same rule will apply to all sanctioned play, amateur or professional, beginning January 1, 2000.

Hundreds of abandoned construction cranes languish above Dubai’s gated communities and beach-side developments and, most dramatically, up and down Sheikh Zayed Road, its high-rise spine. According to a recent estimate in the Middle East Economic Digest, projects worth a staggering $335 billion in the United Arab Emirates — of which Dubai, with a population of about 2 million, is the largest member — are stalled or have been canceled outright.
Fort Worth-based BNSF has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to beef up its Southern California operations to grab a bigger share of that business.

“Within our 28-state network, California is incredibly important to us,” BNSF Chief Executive Matthew K. Rose said. “A lot of trade comes through there, a lot gets consumed in California, and a lot gets handled and repackaged there.”

China’s rise has given a new push to U.S. railroads, which have chugged their way back into the nation’s transportation future after losing ground for decades to the trucking industry.

Dubai’s residents, roughly 85% of them expatriates, have been left to wonder if the current crisis is merely a pause, a recessionary lull that will be painful but temporary, or closer to a fundamental reckoning that will entirely reorder the emirate and how it does business. The same question is being asked in cities around the world, of course. But it’s a particularly acute, even existential one here, since it goes right to the heart of Dubai’s self-image.

During the boom years of the last decade, the emirate — which has only a tiny fraction of the oil reserves held by the capital of the UAE, Abu Dhabi — became synonymous with frenzied real estate speculation and headlong growth. It operated as a highly efficient machine for attracting capital from around the globe — in some cases from investors who, for political reasons, rejected the idea of sending it to the U.S. — and turning it into real estate. In a fundamental sense, many of Dubai’s skyscrapers were conceived and designed primarily as vessels to store excess liquidity. If the endless rows of stalled towers now resemble mere shells, perhaps shells are all they were ever meant to be.

You wouldn’t have to be hopelessly cynical to conclude that it was all a kind of Ponzi-scheme urbanism: city planning à la Bernard Madoff. “During the boom,” as the Economist put it, “supply seemed to create its own demand.”

A separate report from the Federal Reserve showed U.S. industrial production fell 0.5% last month, a sixth consecutive monthly decline but at a more modest pace than in recent months. Economists had been looking for output to slide 0.6% drop. A month earlier, output fell by 1.7%.

The report shows that the U.S. industry remains weak. Industrial production has fallen in 15 of the 17 months since the recession began in December 2007, and is down 16% since then.

The capacity utilization rate for total industry, a measure of slack in the economy, fell to 69.1% in April, the lowest level on records dating back to 1967.

A third report said consumer confidence rose in early May to its strongest since the September failure of Lehman Bros., with rising expectations the economy may be in the last stages of the recession.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of confidence for May rose to 67.9 from 65.1 in April. This was above economists’ median expectation of a reading of 67.0, according to a Reuters poll.

The index of consumer expectations jumped to 69.0 in early May, its highest since October 2007 and up from 63.1 in April.

“Consumer confidence rose in early May as consumers became increasingly convinced that the economy is in its final stages of contraction, and paradoxically, that their personal finances would remain dismal and keep their spending at reduced levels for the foreseeable future,” the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said in a statement.

Confidence remained shaky overall however, with the majority of consumers in early May reporting their financial situation had worsened due primarily to income declines, shorter work hours and lost jobs, according to the survey.

Most economists believe inflation will not be a threat for a prolonged period. The CPI followed a report Thursday that wholesale prices rose 0.3% in April, but fell 3.7% the past 12 months, biggest decline since 1950.

Concern about deflation is muted in this country because of the aggressive actions taken by Congress and the Fed. The central bank has pushed a key interest rate to a record low near zero and has taken a number of other measures to flood the banking system with cash to deal with the credit crisis. Congress passed record spending bills to stimulate the economy.

A customer service woman of China Mobile’s Shanghai branch reached by China Daily said the suspension would only occur when the operator’s system has automatically detected that the user has sent, or is sending, “a large amount” of illegal information; or if the operator receives complaints from other users.

China Mobile’s Beijing branch also said they will take similar action.

The modu phone module, which weighs only 1.3 ounces and is smaller than a credit card, could conceivably serve as a sidekick to much more than handheld devices. It could, for example, be slipped into a bedstand alarm clock to display incoming text (SMS) messages. Inserted in a car’s dashboard, modu could allow for hands-free calling over the stereo system or provide an address book for the car’s GPS navigation system. Slipped into a laptop, modu could provide mobile Internet access. modu says Philips Electronics has shown interest in developing compatible products. Efforts to reach Philips for comment were not immediately successful. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” says Moran. “This is a way to provide communications capability to any device.”

When a suspected unhealthy message is detected, China Mobile will temporarily suspend the message function of the user and wait for the evaluation from police authorities, it said.

If the police confirm the message contains unhealthy content, the user’s phone number will be temporarily banned from sending messages. If the police say the message is fine, it will issue a certificate to the user to seek resumption of service, the statement said.

However, the new practice has triggered heated debate.

The initial advice Wednesday from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman Inez Tenenbaum contained plenty of don’ts — but didn’t say what to do with the jewelry if you have it. When pressed, Tenenbaum’s spokesman Scott Wolfson explained parents should grab the trinkets and toss them. Just be sure to “safely dispose” of the merchandise under applicable state and federal environmental law.

The Associated Press findings prompted retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to remove the products cited by AP from its stores in the United States. Last Tuesday, the jewelry and accessories chain Claire’s, with nearly 3,000 locations in North America and Europe, announced that it, too, would stop selling any item cited in the AP investigation.

Charms on a “Best Friends” bracelet sold at Claire’s contained 89 and 91 percent cadmium, according to testing organized by AP, and shed alarming amounts in a procedure that examined how much cadmium children might be exposed to.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced it was opening an investigation into the AP’s findings, and China’s government also took notice of the trouble brewing in its largest export market.

“We just heard about this, and we will investigate,” said Wang Xin, director of supervision in the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

He spoke to an AP reporter at a toy safety conference in Hong Kong. His agency and the Ministry of Commerce did not immediately respond to written questions submitted by fax in Beijing.

The tainted jewelry was reminiscent of the product-safety scandals of 2007 in which dangerous levels of lead caused Mattel Inc. and other toy makers to recall large numbers of Chinese-made toys. Following that, the U.S. government enacted tougher limits on lead in toys.

Beijing also promised greater vigilance in enforcing safety standards for exports and the domestic market.

China has regulations limiting cadmium to tiny amounts in fashion jewelry and children’s toys. Fashion jewelry should not contain more than 0.1 percent cadmium. In materials for toys, cadmium should not exceed 75 parts per million, or 50 parts per million for clay and paint.

And what bits of the survey catch the eye as, well, a bit out of the ordinary? Here are four:

One: Graham Beale, chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, says there’s an appetite from the tripartite regulators (Financial Services Authority, Bank of England and HM Treasury) to boost the mutual sector with one or two more “big-ticket” players to sit alongside his own Swindon-based giant.

He says it’s early days so far, but the model being considered is in the Netherlands, where Rabobank is a collective of around 150 institutions. “We’re at the very early stage of exploring opportunities in the UK to mirror such arrangements,” he told the CBI/PwC surveyors.

There may be the start of something bigger form the merger of the Co-operative Bank and Britannia Building Society, says Mr Beale. The same could come from Yorkshire and Chelsea getting spliced.

So give them a hearing, but don’t give yourself any prizes for guessing the top findings:

- Too much regulation is bad, and the financial crisis has given regulators an opportunity to boost their interference.

- Any kind of regulation from Brussels seems to be bad, and intended to do down the City of London.

- Asia is the Next Big Thing, and China in particular. Chinese banks are going to edge into the world top 10.

- UK banking could see the emergence of new competitors such as Virgin and Tesco. And it’s going to be less exciting and profitable.

- Financial innovation will have to prove its worth, and will have to meet customer scepticism about products they don’t understand.
Transparency will be valued.

Nike signed him to a five-year deal worth $2.5m - the most ever for a basketball star.

But even the huge sums of money involved failed to make the public perceive Jordan as a greedy sportsman.

Most people considered him underpaid.

In their first year of sales, Nike Air Jordan shoes grossed $130m.

Former opponent Alvin Robertson suggested “the company should change its name to Mike”.

The offers continued to pour in and Jordan was soon advertising everything from aftershave to underwear.

By the time he retired for a second time in 1998, Fortune magazine estimated Jordan’s worth to the US economy had been $10 billion.

And fans at games held aloft banners proclaiming “Michael for President”.

He even got a glowing reference from Magaret Thatcher.

The Wizards missed out on capping Jordan’s final season with a place in the play-offs.

And Lue refuted suggestions that the media spotlight on them as a result of Jordan’s farewell tour had been a distraction to the side.

“It’s definitely been enjoyable being able to play with the best player that has ever played and learn the things you learn from him,” he said.

“Seeing a 40-year-old man go out every night and give 100% effort every time he steps on the court and play so hard.

“Us other guys have got to see that and go out and give the same effort - if a 40-year-old man who has done it all before can do it then why can’t we do it?

Barrington had annual sales of about $5 million and was profitable last year. But sales have taken a hit. Corporate gift-giving is down, and two of its biggest customers, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, no longer exist. A third big customer, Merrill Lynch & Co., is now part of Bank of America Corp.

“However, we’ve always weathered past recessions,” Gowdey says. “When times get tough, people would rather give quality rather than something that gets tossed away and ends up in a landfill.”

Barrington hopes to capitalize on this serendipity – in a strictly legal way.

It can’t rename the bag the “Obama” and was worried that the “Air Force One” might push the ethical envelope. But “Presidential Carry-on” is fair game and still gets the point across.

It sells for $350 wholesale, while a faux-leather version costs $75. Retailers typically double those prices.

Barrington’s clientele includes Microsoft Corp., PGA Tour, Aflac Inc., Compass Bank, Perot Systems Corp., American Airlines Center and Coca-Cola Co. It also sells to about 400 retailers.

Gloria Kellum, vice chancellor at Ole Miss, helped pick out the captain’s bag made of top-grade English saddle leather that was given to John McCain, Barack Obama and debate moderator Jim Lehrer. It’s the most expensive product Barrington’s ever made.

“We wanted something very special for when they were on the Ole Miss campus,” she says.

Last week, several alums e-mailed her the Time White House photo blog.

“When we saw it, we went, ‘Oh, wow! Isn’t that great?’ ” Kellum says.

Given the importance of the auto industry to Michigan, the restructuring inevitably will bleed over into a broader cultural shift in how Michiganders see themselves and their economic life, said Doug Rothwell, president of the corporate leadership group Detroit Renaissance.”The culture is the thing we’ve got to deal with the most, and that’s the toughest to deal with,” Rothwell said. He cited attitudes toward education, race and geographic boundaries among things that influence Michigan’s economic outlook — “all the stuff that’s tied us up in knots for years.”

Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Kmart and Sears, Roebuck and Co., eked out a small gain and offered fourth-quarter guidance that’s sharply above Wall Street estimates. Others, including Macy’s Inc. and Limited Brands, raised their profit forecasts.

Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and commercial hub, has largely been spared the Taliban-linked violence that has struck much of the rest of the country, a fact that analysts believe is driven by the group’s tendency to use it as a place to rest and raise money. But the city has been the scene of frequent ethnic, political and sectarian violence.

On Dec. 28, a bombing against a Shiite Muslim religious procession in the city killed 43 people and wounded dozens. Riots broke out after that attack, with people setting fire to the country’s largest wholesale market. The blaze burned for more than two days and destroyed thousands of shops in the area.

In the first half hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 27.96, or 0.3 percent, to 10,545.72. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 2.88, or 0.3 percent, to 1,134.26, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 8.33, or 0.4 percent, to 2,292.76.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, was flat at 3.83 percent from late Wednesday.

The dollar rose against other major currencies, while gold prices fell. A gain in the dollar weighs on commodity prices by making them more expensive for overseas buyers. That hurts energy and materials companies.