(Reuters) - A searing heat wave in the central and southern United States has killed at least 22 people this week, and forecasters on Wednesday said the heat was moving east and could last for weeks.
The National Weather Service said 141 million people in more than two dozen states were under a heat advisory or warning because of the soaring temperatures. The country's midsection has been scorched off and on since late May.
In Wichita, Kansas, forecasters warned temperatures would hit at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) every day through Tuesday.
"It's just draining, physically draining," said Chris Vaccaro, a Weather Service spokesman.
The inferno moved into the mid-Atlantic states. Temperatures reached above 90 degrees F (32 degrees C) in Washington, D.C. and were expected to hit 100 degrees on Thursday.
Meteorologists said the heat wave could last into August over much of the eastern United States.
The cumulative effects in terms of lost lives, stress on the power grid and damage to roads and bridges could eclipse the effects of the deadly heat wave of 1995, which claimed hundreds of lives in Chicago alone, AccuWeather.com predicted.
"When all is said and done, with the number of days of extreme heat and humidity of the current heat wave, it may be more significant and impact a larger area," said AccuWeather's Jim Andrews.
Hospitals in Wichita treated 25 heat-related illnesses, according to the National Weather Service. In Des Moines, Iowa, 16 people have been hospitalized because of this week's high temperatures.
The high heat and humidity have been stressing U.S. crops, particularly corn, which is now in a key growth stage, and endangering livestock. Up to 1,500 cattle have died in South Dakota because of the heat wave, according to the state's veterinarian, Dustin Oedekoven, and he expects that number to rise.
In Indianapolis, homeowners were being asked to stop watering their lawns through at least Sunday.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Nearly two dozen dead as US heat wave moves east | Reuters
WePay Launches WePay Stores, Taking On PayPal - Tomio Geron - Social Markets - Forbes
WePay is expanding from a group payment service, taking on others in the online payments space such as PayPal.
The start-up is launching WePay Stores, a service for merchants to quickly set up online stores. For people who want to sell online they do not need a merchant account.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based WePay originally launched with a tool for people manage and collect payments from a group of people. Up until now WePay has focused on consumers: smaller groups such as fraternities, alumni groups, or friends who go on a group vacation.
WePay then released an events product, so that people organizing an event could manage both the ticket sales and the payment processing on WePay. This makes it easier than having to use, for example, both Eventbrite and PayPal for payments, says WePay co-founder Rich Aberman. Or for groups seeking donations, instead of using Kickstarter and PayPal, they can use just WePay. The WePay events product was built on a whim as demand for it grew–it’s designed to be quick to set up and doesn’t include sophisticated features such as ticket scanning that Eventbrite has.
Now WePay is going more directly after merchants, and eBay’s PayPal. Whereas people would previously have to use PayPal for payments and Yahoo Stores, Chase or Shopify to set up an online store, WePay is providing both payments and stores together, Aberman says. While other shopping cart services require more sophistication and some customization, WePay is aimed at people who don’t even necessarily have their own website. It’s designed to be set up in a minute, he says. People can embed the WePay store on their blog with a single line of code, Aberman says.
While WePay did not originally announce their intention to go after PayPal, Aberman is clear about that now. “Our goal is, we’re taking on PayPal,” Aberman says. “Our goal is to replace them as the de facto way to pay online.”
WePay charges 3.5%, while PayPal charges about 1.9% to 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. However, Aberman says because WePay is an all-in-one service, it ends up costing about the same as using PayPal plus another services such as Eventbrite. Other web site creators such as Weebly also offer stores.
Payments is a complex business which took PayPal years to develop so the company faces challenges. Payments include merchant accounts, underwriting, gateway fees, anti-fraud controls and chargebacks. Aberman says WePay handles all of that so customers don’t have to worry about it. WePay also has debit cards and bank accounts through a bank partner.
To help with this, one of WePay’s angel investors and an advisor is Max Levchin who built much of PayPal’s original anti-fraud system. WePay is also using technology that was not available when PayPal was founded, such as using social networking data to verify peoples’ identities.
In one example of a company using the WePay Stores service, StartupTees.com is using the service.
WePay was founded by Bill Clerico and Aberman in 2008 and is backed by August Capital, Highland Capital Partners and YCombinator.
Three presumed dead in Yosemite waterfall plunge | Reuters
(Reuters) - Three people who had been playing at the top of a 317-foot Yosemite National Park waterfall were presumed dead after plunging over the edge, a park spokesman said on Wednesday.
Ninos Yacoub, 27, Hormiz David, 22, and Ramina Badal, 21, were seen slipping over Vernal Falls on Tuesday afternoon by hikers who had warned them to stay out of the river above the precipice, park ranger Scott Gediman said.
"Basically one person lost his footing and he started to slide down, and the second person tried to rescue him and then the third," he said.
Search and rescue teams had not found the bodies as of Wednesday morning, Gediman said, but did not believe that Yacoub, David or Badal could have lived through the ordeal.
"It's a 317-foot vertical drop over rushing water. It's not something that somebody can survive, unfortunately, Gediman said. "It's a tragic situation."
One or more of the bodies could have become wedged in rocks or carried downstream in the Merced River, Gediman said.
Oil rises above $99 after US crude supply drop - Forbes.com
Oil prices climbed above $99 a barrel Wednesday thanks to a weaker dollar and after a report showed U.S. crude supplies dropped more than expected, a sign that demand may be improving.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for August delivery was up $1.18 to $99.04 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose $1.57 to settle at $97.50 on Tuesday.