DataSet.csv

"About 250,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes to avoid floods caused by torrential rainfall in south-west Japan, officials say.",Yes
Flooding and landslides on the southern island of Kyushu have left at least 20 people dead in the past three days.,Yes
TV footage showed muddy waters sweeping through homes and streets as rivers burst their banks in the north of the island.,No
The Japan Meteorological Agency has warned of further rain and landslides.,No
"At least seven people were said to be missing on Friday, Japanese media said. ",Yes
Japan's Self-Defence Forces have been brought in to help search for the missing.,No
"More than 75cm (30in) of rain fell in 72 hours in the city of Aso, in Kumamoto prefecture, according to weather officials quoted by the French news agency AFP.",Yes
"The evacuation orders affect 85,000 households in the prefectures of Fukuoka, Saga, Kumamoto and Oita, the Kyodo news agency reported.",Yes
"In Fukuoka prefecture alone, around 190,000 people from 65,000 households were issued the order, with the entire area of the cities of Yanagawa, Yame and Miyama to be evacuated.",Yes
"Another 140,000 have been advised to vacate their homes as well, AFP quoted local officials as saying.",Yes
"Those being asked to leave their homes have been told to go to designated shelters such as schools and other facilities, according to the agency.",No
"Mobile phones are now the most common way for people to connect to the internet in China, a report has said.",No
"For the first time, desktop computers are no longer the leading method for the country's 538 million connected citizens to get online.",Yes
The report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) said over 50% of the year's new internet users were from rural areas.,Yes
"A fall in smartphone costs has been the key cause of growth, experts said.",No
"""Mobile phones are a cheaper and more convenient way to access the internet for [residents in] China's vast rural areas and for the enormous migrant population,"" said the report from the state-linked CINIC.",No
"Mobile internet users now number 388 million, up almost 10% since the start of the year.",Yes
"""Mobile phone prices continued to drop,"" the report said.",No
"""The emergence of smartphones under 1,000 yuan [$157, £100] sharply lowered the threshold for using the devices and encouraged average mobile phone users to become mobile web surfers.""",Yes
"The total number of those online has risen 5% since the end of last year, many of whom are very active in cyberspace.",Yes
"Bill Dutton, professor of internet studies at the University of Oxford, told the BBC that the trend followed similar growth in other parts of the world.",No
"""We're moving to what we call next-generation users,"" he said.",No
"""They're likely to have three or four devices in their homes, therefore they're able to integrate computing into their lives wherever they are.""",Yes
He added that the rapid adoption of mobile among the rural community was one of necessity over desire.,No
"""There's a wave of people coming online that would not otherwise be able to afford to be there.""",No
"Over half of the connected population in China frequently use microblogging sites like Sina Weibo, a service similar to Twitter which is banned in the country.",No
The popularity of these services has prompted the government to force users to sign up using their real names.,No
Internet use in China has had a rocky history. ,No
"The country has been on the end of sharp criticism from human rights groups for blocking large amounts of content from its citizens - a system which has been dubbed the ""Great Firewall of China"".",No
The report's implications are likely to have been noticed by the country's Communist leaders.,No
"Mobile phones are an ideal platform for the microblogs which have become unofficial forums for information about unrest, scandals or disasters.",No
"While internet access through web-browsers is constrained by the Great Firewall, specially written mobile programmes - or apps - frequently circumvent China's internet controls.",No
"KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The drought that has settled over more than half of the continental United States this summer is the most widespread in more than half a century.",No
And it is likely to grow worse.,No
"The latest outlook released by the National Weather Service on Thursday forecasts increasingly dry conditions over much of the nation’s breadbasket, a development that could lead to higher food prices and shipping costs as well as reduced revenues in areas that count on summer tourism. ",No
About the only relief in sight was tropical activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Southeast that could bring rain to parts of the South.,No
The unsettling prospects come at a time of growing uncertainty for the country’s economy.,No
"With evidence mounting of a slowdown in the economic recovery, this new blow from the weather is particularly ill-timed.",No
Already some farmers are watching their cash crops burn to the point of no return.,No
"Others have been cutting their corn early to use for feed, a much less profitable venture.",No
"“It really is a crisis. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois said after touring ravaged farms in the southern part of the state.",No
"The government has declared one-third of the nation’s counties — 1,297 of them across 29 states — federal disaster areas as a result of the drought, which will allow farmers to apply for low-interest loans to get them through the disappointing growing season.",Yes
"“It’s got the potential to be the worst drought we’ve ever had in Arkansas,” said Butch Calhoun, the state’s secretary of agriculture.",No
“It’s going to be very detrimental to our economy.”,No
What is particularly striking about this dry spell is its breadth.,No
"Fifty-five percent of the continental United States — from California to Arkansas, Texas to North Dakota — is under moderate to extreme drought, according to the government, the largest such area since December 1956. ",Yes
"An analysis released on Thursday by the United States Drought Monitor showed that 88 percent of corn and 87 percent of soybean crops in the country were in drought-stricken regions, a 10 percent jump from a week before. ",Yes
"Corn and soybean prices reached record highs on Thursday, with corn closing just over $8.07 a bushel and soybeans trading as high as $17.49.",Yes
"As of Sunday, more than half of the corn in seven states was in poor or very poor condition, according to the Department of Agriculture.",Yes
"In Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana, that figure is above 70 percent.",Yes
"Over all, only 31 percent of the nation’s corn is in good to excellent condition, compared with 66 percent at the same time last year.",Yes
"“We’re expecting significant reductions in production potential yield, potential for corn and soybeans in particular,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the Department of Agriculture.",No
"The withering corn has increased feed prices and depleted available feeding land, putting stress on cattle farmers. ",No
"A record 54 percent of pasture and rangeland — where cattle feed or where hay is harvested for feeding — was in poor or very poor condition, according to the Department of Agriculture.",Yes
Many farmers have been forced to sell their animals.,No
"Because feed can account for nearly half of a cattle farmer’s costs, consumers could see a rise in the price of meat and dairy products, experts said. ",Yes
" The high sustained heat has led the key components in milk, like fat and protein, to plummet more than usual, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for National Milk Producers Federation.",No
"“This is due to cows eating less dry matter, and drinking more water ... which tends to thin out the resulting milk output,” he said in an e-mail.",No
"“So, if you’re a cheese maker, you need to use a little more milk to get the same volume of cheese output.”",No
"Still, this year’s drought is not expected to be as rough on Midwestern agriculture as the one in 1988.",Yes
"Corn yields were 22 percent under trend that year, and this year the Department of Agriculture is projecting yields 11 percent under trend — “though that could change in August,” said Joseph W. Glauber, the department’s chief economist.",Yes
What claims to be (and indeed appears to be) the first formal attempt to calculate numbers of cancer cases and deaths resulting from the Fukushima nuclear accident has just been published.,Yes
"The Energy and Environmental Science journal paper calculates that total deaths will lie in the range 15-1,300, while cases will number 24-2,500.",Yes
"These are deaths among the public, not among workers at the plant.",No
The calculations were done by Prof Mark Jacobson and Dr John Ten Hoeve from Stanford University in California.,No
"One point they raise in the paper is that while these ranges may be big, even the minima are numbers above zero.",Yes
This contradicts statements made since March 2010 that the world's worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl would be likely not to produce a single radiation-linked fatality among the public.,Yes
(They also predict a small number of cancers - between two and 12 - among workers at Fukushima Daiichi.),Yes
And the academics say the death and case numbers are lower than they might have been because of luck.,Yes
Only one-fifth of the radioactive material vented into the air from the stricken power station fell on land; more fallout on land would have meant a higher casualty list.,Yes
"As intuition would suggest, the vast majority of the cancer cases would arise in Japan itself.",Yes
"The estimate hasn't yet made any major headlines around the world; and in part, that's presumably because of the uncertainty ranges.",No
This kind of exercise is fiendishly difficult to do precisely.,No
"The results depend heavily on what you put into your models, and two kinds of model are needed here - one of how radioactive material dispersed, the second relating exposure to that radioactive material with the subsequent risk of disease.",Yes
Possibly the biggest uncertainty in all this concerns whether there's any added risk of cancer from exposure to low doses of radioactivity.,No
"Theories that are in circulation encompass the idea that there is a risk but it decreases linearly with declining exposure; that there's no extra risk; and that low doses of radioactivity are actually beneficial, a notion known as hormesis.",No
The Stanford academics used the first of those ideas - what's called a Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model.,Yes
"One question I raised with Prof Jacobson was whether, using their methodology, you could say what the rates would have been if there were a threshold - if low doses had no effect.",Yes
"Currently that's not possible, he said, though the figures probably could be derived, given time.",No
Perhaps the study's most important point materialises when you hold the numbers up to the light of context.,Yes
"The paper mentions that evacuating people from the power station's environs resulted in as many as 600 deaths - principally the elderly and seriously ill, for whom evacuation was too arduous.",Yes
But more context is given by cancer statistics.,No
"The figures given in Prof Jacobson's paper are for lifetime risk - that is, the number of people who will die of cancer at some point.",Yes
"If you try to make the effect as strong as you can, by assuming that all those deaths will occur in a 10-year period - which is almost certainly too tight - and take the highest end of the range, Fukushima would add 130 deaths per year.",Yes
"By contrast, more than 350,000 Japanese die of cancer each year, according to the Japan Cancer Society.",Yes
The disease will cause the death of about one-third of the population.,Yes
"Fukushima fallout, then, would be adding less than 0.1% to the total cancer mortality.",Yes
"If the real numbers are at the low end of the Stanford range, it'll add less than 0.001%",Yes
The nuclear accident has proven a very big deal for Japan and for nuclear power around the world.,No
"Several reasons for that are all too real. Does the added cancer risk amount to another one, from these numbers, or not?",Yes
"Last year, during his best three-month stretch, Jordan Golson sold about $750,000 worth of computers and gadgets at the Apple Store in Salem, N.H. ",Yes
It was a performance that might have called for a bottle of Champagne — if that were a luxury Mr. Golson could have afforded.,No
"“I was earning $11.25 an hour,” he said.",Yes
"“Part of me was thinking, ‘This is great. I’m an Apple fan, the store is doing really well.’ ",No
"But when you look at the amount of money the company is making and then you look at your paycheck, it’s kind of tough.”",No
America’s love affair with the smartphone has helped create tens of thousands of jobs at places like Best Buy and Verizon Wireless and will this year pump billions into the economy.,Yes
"Within this world, the Apple Store is the undisputed king, a retail phenomenon renowned for impeccable design, deft service and spectacular revenues.",No
"Last year, the company’s 327 global stores took in more money per square foot than any other United States retailer — wireless or otherwise — and almost double that of Tiffany, which was No. 2 on the list, according to the research firm RetailSails.",Yes
"Worldwide, its stores sold $16 billion in merchandise.",Yes
But most of Apple’s employees enjoyed little of that wealth. ,No
"While consumers tend to think of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as the company’s heart and soul, a majority of its workers in the United States are not engineers or executives with hefty salaries and bonuses but rather hourly wage earners selling iPhones and MacBook",No
"About 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in this country work in Apple Stores, as members of the service economy, and many of them earn about $25,000 a year. ",Yes
"They work inside the world’s fastest growing industry, for the most valuable company, run by one of the country’s most richly compensated chief executives, Tim Cook.",No
"Last year, he received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period, that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million.",Yes
"And though Apple is unparalleled as a retailer, when it comes to its lowliest workers, the company is a reflection of the technology industry as a whole.",No
"The Internet and advances in computing have created untold millionaires, but most of the jobs created by technology giants are service sector positions — sales employees and customer service representatives, repairmen and delivery drivers — that offer little of Silicon Valley’s riches or glamour.",Yes
"Much of the debate about American unemployment has focused on why companies have moved factories overseas, but only 8 percent of the American work force is in manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.",Yes
" Job growth has for decades been led by service-related work, and any recovery with real legs, labor experts say, will be powered and sustained by this segment of the economy.",No
"And as the service sector has grown, the definition of a career has been reframed for millions of American workers.",Yes
"“In the service sector, companies provide a little bit of training and hope their employees leave after a few years,” says Arne L. Kalleberg, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina. ",No
" “Especially now, given the number of college kids willing to work for low wages.”",No
"By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay — well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour. ",Yes
" The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount.",Yes
But Apple is not selling polo shirts or yoga pants. ,No
"Divide revenue by total number of employees and you find that last year, each Apple store employee — that includes non-sales staff like technicians and people stocking shelves — brought in $473,000.",Yes
"“These are sales rates for a consulting company,” said Horace Dediu, an analyst who blogged about the calculation on the site Asymco. ",No
"Electronics and appliance stores typically post $206,000 in revenue per employee, according to the latest figures from the National Retail Federation.",Yes
"Even Apple, it seems, has recently decided it needs to pay its workers more. ",No
"Last week, four months after The New York Times first began inquiring about the wages of its store employees, the company started to inform some staff members that they would receive substantial raises. ",Yes
"An Apple spokesman confirmed the raises but would not discuss their size, timing or impetus, nor who would earn them.",No
"But Cory Moll, a salesman in the San Francisco flagship store and a vocal labor activist, said that on Tuesday he was given a raise of $2.82 an hour, to $17.31, an increase of 19.5 percent and a big jump compared with the 49-cent raise he was given last year.",Yes
"“My manager called me into his office and said, ‘Apple wants to show that it cares about its workers, and show that it knows how much value you add to the company, by offering a bigger raise than in previous years,’ ” Mr. Moll recalled.",No
"Though a significant increase, Mr. Moll’s new salary of about $36,000 puts him on the low side of the wage scale at the other large sellers of Apple products, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, both of which offer commissions to sales staff at their stores.",Yes
"In other areas, Apple has been a leader. ",No
"Stores in a variety of fields have adopted the company’s retail techniques, like the use of roving credit-card swipers to minimize checkout lines, as well as the petting-zoo layout that encourages customers to test-drive products.",Yes
"But Apple’s success, it turns out, rests on a set of intangibles; foremost among them is a built-in fan base that ensures a steady supply of eager applicants and an employee culture that tries to turn every job into an exalted mission.",No
"This is why Apple can do something unique in the annals of retailing: pay a modest hourly wage, and no commission, to employees who typically have college degrees and who at the highest performing levels can move as much as $3 million in goods a year.",Yes
"“When you’re working for Apple you feel like you’re working for this greater good,” says a former salesman who asked for anonymity because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. ",No
“That’s why they don’t have a revolution on their hands.”,No
"These true believers skew young, as anyone who has ever set foot in an Apple Store knows.",No
"And the relative youth of this work force helps explain why people are likely to judge the company by a different set of standards when it comes to wages, says Paul Osterman, a professor at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management.",No
"“It’s interesting to ask why we find it offensive that Wal-Mart pays a single mother $9 an hour, but we don’t find it offensive that Apple pays a young man $12 an hour,” Mr. Osterman said. ",Yes
"“For each company, the logic is the same — there is a line of people eager to take the job. ",No
"In effect, we’re saying that our value judgments depend on the circumstances of the employee, not just supply and demand of the labor market.”",No
"Twenty-two-year-olds also tend to be more tolerant of the Apple Store’s noise and bustle, yet these days some former employees describe a work environment that was too hectic and stressful, thanks in large part to the runaway popularity of the iPhone and iPad.",Yes
"Managers often tell new workers that they hope to get six years of service, former employees say. ",Yes
"“That was what we heard all the time,” says Shane Garcia, a former Apple Store manager in Chicago.",No
“Six years.” ,Yes
"But the average tenure is two and a half years, says a person familiar with the company’s retention numbers, and as foot traffic has increased, turnover rates in many stores have increased, too.",Yes
"Internal surveys at stores have also found surprising dissatisfaction levels, particularly among technicians, or “geniuses” in Apple’s parlance, who work at what is called the Genius Bar.",No
"Apple declined requests for interviews for this article. Instead, the company issued a statement:",No
“Thousands of incredibly talented professionals work behind the Genius Bar and deliver the best customer service in the world. ,Yes
"The annual retention rate for Geniuses is almost 90%, which is unheard-of in the retail industry, and shows how passionate they are about their customers and their careers at Apple.”",Yes
"That 90 percent figure sounds accurate to Mr. Garcia, who quit last July after four years with the company, overwhelmed by the work and unable to mollify employees and customers alike. ",Yes
"Plenty of technicians do, in fact, like their jobs, which vary around the country, and which pay in the range of $40,000 a year in the Chicago area. ",Yes
"Many technicians, though, wanted to leave but were unable to find equivalent work, according to Mr. Garcia and other former managers, in part because of the weak economy.",Yes
"The problem for Apple Store employees, they said, wasn’t just the pace.",No
 It was the lack of upward mobility. ,No
There are only a handful of different jobs at Apple Stores and the most prestigious are invariably sought after by dozens of candidates. ,Yes
And a leap to the company headquarters is highly unusual.,No
"Apple prohibits its staff from talking to the media, but several former employees who spoke for this article said they had fond memories of their jobs, and regarded them as ideal for people in their early 20s who aren’t ready for a full-on dive into the white-collar world.",Yes
"And “Apple” can be a strong credential to have on a résumé, these people said. ",No
"Technicians often move on to higher-paying jobs in information technology, they said, and sales staff have a leg up on the competition if they stay in retailing because “people know how grueling the job is,” as one former manager put it.",No
"But other former employees have struggled to find work, or have moved into lateral jobs at other companies. ",No
" And even those who used Apple as a launching pad described a gradual evolution, from team player to skeptic, as they discovered that there was a gap between what the job appeared to be (kind of hip) and what it was (frenetic and in many cases a dead end).",No
"Kelly Jackson, who was a technician at an Apple Store in Chicago, was thrilled when she was hired two years ago. ",Yes
"But she said she was even happier when she quit a year later, having found the work too relentless and the satisfactions too elusive.",No
"“When somebody left, you’d be really excited for them,” says Ms. Jackson, who now works at Groupon. ",No
"“It was sort of like, ‘Congratulations. ",No
You’ve done what everyone here wants to do.’ ”,No
"Skeptics outnumbered believers when Steven P. Jobs, then Apple’s chief, pitched the Apple Store concept to his board in 2000. ",Yes
"Ultimately, approval was given for just four stores.",Yes
Mr. Jobs hired a Target executive named Ron Johnson to help design and oversee the stores. ,No
" He in turn hired eight people, one of whom was Denyelle Bruno, then an executive at Macy’s West. ",Yes
" When she was first approached, she said, she was told next to nothing about the work.",No
"That did not daunt Ms. Bruno, now an executive at Peet’s Coffee.",No
"“I had grown up using Macs, and if it involved Apple and I could be involved,” she said, “it made me feel important.”",No
Ms. Bruno was one of the first hard-core Apple fans hired for the nascent chain. ,Yes
"Many others would follow, and part of her job was to help recruit them. ",No
"Initially, that involved walking into stores, including those operated by Sprint and AT&T, and scouting out promising employees.",No
"Such solicitations were unnecessary after the first two stores opened, on May 19, 2001, in McLean, Va., and Glendale, Calif. ",Yes
" Soon, so many people wanted to work at the stores that Mr. Johnson would compare applicants-to-openings ratios and boast that it was harder to land a job at an Apple Store than to get into Stanford, his alma mater.",No
Those applicants have for years submitted résumés through the company’s site. ,No
"The time-intensive part, former managers say, is finding the right people amid the pile, and the candidates of choice are affable and self-directed rather than tech-savvy. ",No
" (The latter can be taught, is the theory, while the former is innate.) ",No
The vetting has not changed much. ,No
"It often starts with an invitation to a seminar, held in a conference room at a hotel.",No
The culling begins before the seminar starts.,No
"“They turn away people who are three minutes late,” says Graham Marley, who attended his seminar in a hotel in Dedham, Mass., in 2009.",Yes
"“My dream my whole life was to work for Apple and suddenly, you can,” he said. ",No
“You’ve always been an evangelist for Apple and now you can get paid for it.”,No
One manager said it was common for people offered jobs to burst into tears. ,No
"But if the newly hired arrive as devotees, Apple’s training course, which can range from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the job and locale, turns them into disciples.",Yes
Training commences with what is known as a “warm welcome.”,No
"As new employees enter the room, Apple managers and trainers give them a standing ovation.",No
"The clapping often bewilders the trainees, at least at first, but when the applause goes on for several lengthy minutes they eventually join in.",Yes
"“My hands would sting from all the clapping,” says Michael Dow, who trained Apple employees for years in Providence, R.I.",No
"There is more role-playing at Core training, as it’s known, this time with pointers on the elaborate etiquette of interacting with customers. ",No
One rule: ask for permission before touching anyone’s iPhone.,Yes
"“And we told trainees that the first thing they needed to do was acknowledge the problem, though don’t promise you can fix the problem,” said Shane Garcia, the one-time Chicago manager. ",Yes
"“If you can, let them know that you have felt some of the emotions they are feeling. ",No
 But you have to be careful because you don’t want to lie about that.”,No
"The phrase that trainees hear time and again, which echoes once they arrive at the stores, is “enriching people’s lives.” ",No
The idea is to instill in employees the notion that they are doing something far grander than just selling or fixing products.,No
"If there is a secret to Apple’s sauce, this is it: the company ennobles employees. ",No
It understands that a lot of people will forgo money if they have a sense of higher purpose.,No
"That empowerment is important because aspiring sales employees would clearly be better off working at one of the country’s other big sellers of Apple products, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, if they were searching for a hefty paycheck.",Yes
 Both offer sales commissions.,Yes
"“It’s not at all common but there are sales agents at Verizon who earn six figures,” says Jonathan Jarboe, who managed Verizon Wireless stores in Oklahoma until last summer. ",Yes
"Several former Verizon Wireless managers said that annual pay ran from $35,000 up to $100,000 in rare cases, with the sweet spot in the $50,000 to $60,000 range.",Yes
"At Apple, the decision not to offer commissions was made, Ms. Bruno said, before a store had opened.",No
"The idea was that such incentives would work against the company’s primary goals — finding customers the right products, rather than the most expensive ones, and establishing long-term rapport with the brand. ",No
"Commissions, it was also thought, would foster employee competition, which would undermine camaraderie.",No
"Tellingly, Apple doesn’t use the word “sales” to describe members of its sales team.",No
They’re called “specialists.”,No
"By minimizing the profit motive among employees, Apple does more than just filter out people interested primarily in money. ",No
"It also reduces the number of middle-aged and older people on the payroll, said former managers.",Yes
"This isn’t about age discrimination, they said, so much as self-selection. ",No
"Generally, an Apple employee is someone who can afford to live cheaply, is not bothered by the nonstop commotion of an Apple Store and is comfortable with technology.",No
"People who fit that bill tend to be in their early or mid-20s, the former managers said. ",Yes
"They typically don’t have children and many don’t have spouses, which means they are relatively inexpensive to cover with health insurance.",No
"There is no shortage of college graduates eager to dedicate themselves to Apple’s vision, on Apple’s terms.",No
"That includes people like Asher Perlman, another former technician from a store in Chicago, who joined Apple three years ago, when he was 22.",Yes
"“I’m happy with my time at Apple and where it landed me,” says Mr. Perlman, who now works in information technology.",No
"“I wouldn’t recommend it for my 35-year-old friend with a kid, but it works for someone who is 22 years old and doesn’t want to enter the business world yet.”",Yes
"The iPhone, which arrived in 2007, brought unprecedented crowds to Apple Stores.",Yes
"The company tried to hang on to its culture, but naturally it changed, and in many ways, say some former employees, for the worse.",No
"Arthur Zarate, who joined Apple in 2004 and later worked as a technician at the store in Mission Viejo, Calif., says his training left him with a sense of ownership and pride. ",Yes
"For a while, he loved the job, in large part because it delivered the simple and gratifying sense that he was helping people. ",No
"There were time constraints on technicians — 20 minutes per customer — but because the store was rarely swamped, he usually had more time than that.",Yes
"“My customers knew me by name,” he said. ",No
“That was a big deal.”,No
"He had already begun to sour on the job when in 2007, he said, his store began an attendance system whereby employees accumulated a point for every day they did not come to work; anyone with four points in a 90-day period was at risk of termination.",Yes
"“It was a perfectly good idea, but the thing that was terrible is that it didn’t matter why you couldn’t come to work,” Mr. Zarate said. ",No
"“Even if you had a doctor document some medical condition, if you didn’t come to work, you got a point.”",No
"Mr. Zarate, a former heavy smoker, said he was once out for two and a half weeks with severe bronchitis and was on the verge of dismissal when he e-mailed Ron Johnson, then the retail chief, who intervened on his behalf.",Yes
"“I just wrote and said, ‘This isn’t fair. ",No
"They don’t look at why you were out,’ ” he recalls. ",No
“And he saved my job.”,No
"To meet the growing demand for the technicians, several former employees said their stores imposed new rules limiting on-the-spot repairs to 15 minutes for a computer-related problem, and 10 minutes for Apple’s assortment of devices. ",Yes
" If a solution took longer to find, which it frequently did, a pileup ensued and a scrum of customers would hover.",No
It wasn’t unusual for a genius to help three customers at once.,Yes
"Because of the constant backlog, technicians often worked nonstop through their shift, instead of taking two allotted 15-minute breaks.",Yes
"In 2009, Matthew Bainer, a lawyer, filed a class action alleging that Apple was breaking California labor laws.",Yes
"“State law mandates two 10-minute breaks a day,” Mr. Bainer said. ",Yes
 “But geniuses had these lengthy queues of customers that made it all but impossible for them to stop even for a few minutes.”,Yes
The lawsuit was denied class certification in June of last year.,No
Mr. Bainer pursued the matter in separate lawsuits and achieved what he described as “very favorable settlements” for 10 plaintiffs.,Yes
"Not long after the class-action lawsuit was filed, a technician named Kevin Timmer who worked at the Woodland Mall store in Grand Rapids, Mich., noticed an added step when he logged onto a computer to punch out of work.",Yes
"“This window popped up and it said something like, ‘By clicking this box I acknowledge that I received all my breaks,’ ” Mr. Timmer recalled. ",No
“The rumor was that was because some guy in California had sued.”,No
Mr. Timmer said he and other technicians in the store clicked the box even when they didn’t take any breaks.,No
 It wasn’t because management insisted they stick around. ,No
It was that any down time would slam already overburdened colleagues with even more work.,No
"“We were all in the trenches together,” he said. ",No
 “Nobody wanted to leave.”,No
"With time limits, several former employees said, came another change at their stores. ",No
"Technicians had always been able to spend a few hours of their shift in the repair room, providing a little away-from-customers time.",No
"In many stores, that ended. ",No
"Walk-in demand for tech help was so great that when the bar was open, management at these stores decreed, it was to be staffed by any technician in the building. ",No
 Repairs that could not be done at the bar would wait.,No
"As a result, the late shift in the repair room at these stores ended not at 10 p.m., but at midnight.",Yes
The pressure didn’t faze everyone. ,No
"Multitasking, for instance, did not bother Asher Perlman.",No
"“I’m a low stress kind of person to begin with and I didn’t find it unmanageable,” he said.",No
“I know others did.”,No
"As the crowds grew, the company’s “thank you” gestures started to seem a little tin-eared. ",No
"Jordan Golson, who now blogs at MacRumors, a site that keeps tabs on all things Apple, said that for Christmas 2010, he and others at the store were given a fleece blanket and an insulated coffee thermos.",Yes
Mr. Zarate fared no better at one quarterly meeting for employees. ,Yes
Mr. Johnson made a videotaped appearance and referred to a wonderful surprise that managers were about to spring on everyone in the room. ,No
Free iPads for everyone was the expectation.,Yes
"“Then the lights went down, and we had a party in the store, with games and dancing,” Mr. Zarate said. ",No
“And we all got two tacos from a taco truck. ,Yes
That was our surprise.,No
 Two tacos.”,Yes
"Like many who spoke for this article, Shane Garcia, the former Chicago manager, talked about Apple with a bittersweet mix of admiration and sadness.",No
"When he joined the company in 2007, he considered it a place, as he said, that “wanted you to be the best you could be in life, not just in sales.”",Yes
"Three years later, his work life seemed tense and thankless. ",Yes
He had little expectation that upper management would praise or even notice his efforts.,No
"Sales employees, Mr. Garcia and others noted, deal with stresses all their own. ",No
"Though commissions are not offered, many managers keep close tabs on sales of warranties, known as Apple Care, and One to One, which is personal tutoring for a fee. ",No
"Employees often had goals for “attachments” as these add-ons are called — 40 percent of certain products should include One to One, and 65 percent should include Apple Care.",Yes
"For a sales employee who wanted to climb Apple’s in-store ladder — to technician or manager, for instance — those numbers were important. ",No
"And in terms of keeping employees invested and striving, so were the rungs on that ladder, something that is true across retailing.",No
"“There was always something being dangled in terms of different positions,” says Danielle Draper, a former manager at a store in Hingham, Mass.",No
"“‘You’ll need to do this if you want to become a creative,’ that kind of thing.",No
There was never perfection.,No
You could always tell someone they needed to work on something.”,No
"At some point, employees either realize they won’t rise, or rise as high as they can.",No
"“The disillusionment settles in not because of pay,” says Graham Marley, the former part-time salesman, “though pay is part of it. ",No
"What happens is you realize that they want you to spend years there, but there is no actual career path.”",No
"An exception is the job of manager, and Apple is often diligent about elevating from within its ranks of high achievers. ",No
Though not always.,No
"After the great influx that started with the iPhone, the company started plucking managers from stores like the Gap and Banana Republic. ",No
"From employees who were around in the pre-2007 era, you can hear occasional laments about the gradual “Gapification of Apple.”",Yes
"In recent years, the level of unhappiness at some stores was captured by an employee satisfaction survey known in the company as NetPromoter for Our People.",No
"It’s a variation of a questionnaire that Apple has long given to customers, and the key question asks employees to rate, on a scale of one to 10, “How likely are you to recommend working at your Apple Retail Store to an interested friend or family member?” ",Yes
Anyone who offers a nine or 10 is considered a “promoter.”,Yes
 Anyone who offers a seven or below is considered a “detractor.”,Yes
Kevin Timmer said the internal survey results last year at the Grand Rapids store were loaded with fives and sixes.,Yes
"“We discussed it in a monthly meeting and our manager had tears in her eyes,” Mr. Timmer recalled. ",No
"“She said something about how humbling these results were, that they want to fix any problems, that her door is always open, and so on.”",No
Similar figures were found in Chicago.,No
"“By then,” Mr. Garcia said, “it wasn’t a surprise to upper management because it was clear that many geniuses wanted to leave. ",No
There was a ceiling.,No
It wasn’t a glass ceiling because everyone could see it.”,No
"Mr. Garcia would eventually quit Apple, and walk away from a job that paid a little more than $40,000 a year, when stress-related health issues sidelined him long enough to put his job at risk. ",Yes
He had no doubts that the company would easily find a replacement.,No
"“There was never a shortage of résumés,” he said. ",No
“People will always want to work for Apple.”,No
"Visionaries hope for a modern metropolis modelled on Singapore, but pessimists fear the emergence of another dirt-poor city of slums. ",No
" Dar es Salaam is one of the world's fastest growing cities, and it has reached its tipping point.",Yes
"In the dark basement of the cavernous Kariakoo market, dozens of traders gather at tiny makeshift stalls, arranging fruit and vegetables into neat piles. ",Yes
"This part of the market has the least sought-after plots, and all of the stallholders have one thing in common: none of them was born in Dar es Salaam.",Yes
"Rolens Elias arrived seven years ago from a village near Morogoro, about 150km to the west.",Yes
He had been a farmer but wanted to try his luck as a trader. ,No
" He now makes about 3,000 shillings ($2; £1.50) each day selling tomatoes in the farthest corner of the basement.",Yes
"""It has been hard to set up a life here,"" he says.",No
"""I came here by myself and had to wait until I had enough money to bring my wife and family.",No
"We all live in one room, but it's a better life than in the village.""",Yes
"As he arranges his tomatoes, a group of his friends gather around and chip in with their own stories.",No
"They are all from Morogoro, and all came to Dar es Salaam in the hope of a better life. ",No
They all contrast the rural poverty they were born into with the lure of Dar es Salaam and its big-city opportunities.,No
Their stories are repeated many thousands of times across the city.,Yes
"Every day new arrivals flood in, many of them setting up home in hastily erected shacks, many others sleeping on the streets.",No
"Those who cannot set up as greengrocers hawk goods, anything from baseball caps and mobile-phone chargers to bottled water and sweeping brushes.",No
The dramatic influx has pushed the city's population up from roughly two million two decades ago to four million today. ,Yes
" If the government does nothing, the population will hit eight million in 20 years, according to Nimrod Mushi, a lecturer at the city's Ardhi university.",Yes
"He is one of the experts commissioned by the government to produce a ""master plan"" to overhaul the city's infrastructure. ",Yes
" Singapore is his role model, and he favours big projects to clear slums and build bridges, roads and out-of-town settlements.",No
"""When we went to Singapore, we could see their satellite towns, their ring-roads, their skyscrapers and their decentralised services, and it's working very nicely there,"" he says.",No
"He points out that Dar es Salaam has gone 20 years without any guidance on planning, and now ""badly needs a master plan"".",Yes
"Superficially at least, his dream seems within reach. ",No
" Tanzania's economy is booming, and cranes litter the skyline, putting the final touches to high-rise blocks. ",No
"The country's super-rich, many of whom make their cash in the far-away mines of the north, are pouring money into the city.",No
But Dar es Salaam is a long way from Singapore. ,No
"The Asia city-state's economy was worth $260bn last year compared with $23bn for the whole of Tanzania, which remains one of the poorest countries in the world.",Yes
The UN estimates that 70% of Dar es Salaam's population live in informal settlements; there are no slums in Singapore.,Yes
Slum clearance would be vital to any regeneration project. ,No
"It would involve rehousing possibly hundreds of thousands of people, and the extra headache of clarifying the legal status of the land that has often passed down through generations of families without any legal paperwork.",Yes
The Tanzanian authorities do not have a great record with such projects. ,No
Some 600 families had their homes destroyed by floods late last year. ,Yes
"The government promised to rehouse them, but most are still living in temporary shelters or have been left to fend for themselves.",No
Such stories point to a deeper problem with Dar es Salaam's development.,No
"The divisions in Tanzania's lop-sided economy, with a tiny super-rich elite and a vast poor majority, are reflected in its main city. ",No
"The poorer residents crowd into dilapidated downtown areas or sprawling slums, many without running water or basic services. ",No
Their rich counterparts can choose between $1m beachside mansions in the city's posh northern districts.,Yes
"Among many of the city's poorer residents, there is profound resentment at the authorities.",No
"""Every day I pay 700 shillings to the government for my stall,"" says avocado seller Mzeze Chouheke Gady. ",Yes
" ""If I make 5,000 shillings, I pay 700. If I make nothing, I still pay 700. ",Yes
"What do I get in return?""",No
"His gripes include a lack of medical care, transport or basic sanitation. ",No
Many other people share his grumbles.,No
Nimrod Mushi warns that a planning overhaul is the only way to solve these problems. ,No
But he concedes that its success or failure depends on financing.,No
"""When the document comes out later this year, we will include all the budgets needed,"" he says.",No
"""Then it's up to the government, or a donor government, to allocate resources. ",No
" Otherwise it'll be just another book on the shelf.""",No
"Rakesh Rajani, who runs a development project in the city, is also worried about the way the authorities are handling the city's growth.",No
"He says the influx provides an opportunity to harness the talents of the people and create a great city, but worries that the authorities too often oppress the poor with petty rules and rough treatment.",No
"He says Tanzania could face a similar conflagration to Kenya in 2007, when thousands of people were killed in post-election violence.",Yes
"His analysis runs against the popularly held view of Dar es Salaam as a beacon of diversity, where people of different religions and ethnicities live together peacefully.",No
But Rajani is more plugged in than most to the collective mind of the city. ,No
"His project, called Twaweza, runs regular phone-based polls on major issues aiming to reflect the views of Dar es Salaam's residents.",No
"""We live on that knife-edge,"" he says.",No
"""Sadly I think that at times the people in charge are squandering this opportunity, and possibly mismanaging things to the extent that it could turn very nasty.""",No
Michael Phelps won a record 19th Olympic medal as the United States took 4x200m freestyle relay gold.,Yes
"The 27-year-old, who swam the anchor leg as the Americans won in a time of six minutes 59.70 seconds, now has 15 golds to his name.",Yes
Ryan Lochte put the US team in total control with a blistering first leg and they finished well ahead of France in second and China third.,Yes
"Phelps overtakes Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 medals.",Yes
Phelps still has three more races at London 2012 before he retires and could establish a record that would be difficult to beat.,Yes
"""It has been a pretty amazing career, but we still have a couple races to go,"" said the Baltimore swimmer, who won a record-breaking eight golds at the 2008 Games.",Yes
"Just minutes before the relay victory, Phelps had claimed his 18th Olympic medal with a silver behind South Africa's Chad le Clos in the 200m butterfly.",Yes
"Le Clos came from behind to touch the wall in one minute 52.96 seconds, just 0.05secs ahead of Phelps.",Yes
"""Obviously I would have liked to have had a better outcome in the 200m fly,"" said the American, who also won six golds at the Athens Games in 2004.",Yes
"""I was on the receiving end of getting touched off.",No
"""Chad swam a great race.",No
" I've gotten to know him over the past year and he's a hard worker, tough competitor and a racer.",No
"""It was obviously my last one and I would have liked to have won, but, you know, one minute 53 seconds isn't a terrible time.""",Yes
"Phelps did not have to wait long for his 15th gold, however.",Yes
The Americans had a lead of four seconds going into the last leg of the 4x200m freestyle relay - mainly thanks to Lochte's fast start.,Yes
"They eventually finished 3.07secs ahead of France, with China a further 3.53secs back in the bronze medal position.",Yes
"At the end of the race, Phelps, Lochte and the other two members of the team, Conor Dwyer and Ricky Berens, huddled together in an emotional moment.",No
"""I thanked those guys for helping me get to this moment,"" Phelps said.",No
"""I told those guys I wanted a big lead. ",No
 And they gave it to me. ,No
"I just wanted to hold on.""",No
"Great Britain's team of Robbie Renwick, Ieuan Lloyd, Rob Bale and Ross Davenport finished sixth.",Yes
"Congressional leaders reached a short-term spending deal Tuesday that would remove the possibility of a government shutdown from the fall campaign season, as fiscal conservatives who swept into office after the 2010 midterm elections on promises to battle for lower spending at every turn showed a new willingness to pick their fights as they seek a big win in November.",Yes
"Under an agreement announced by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Congress would agree to fund the government for six months when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, setting agency spending for the year at $1.047 trillion, as agreed to in last summer’s debt deal.",Yes
It is just above this year’s level of $1.043 trillion.,Yes
"The deal would ensure that the government would keep operating without fuss, a once-routine action that has become far more difficult amid Congress’s gridlock.",Yes
The quick resolution demonstrated that neither party wants a major budget showdown weeks before the November election.,No
"The bill’s six-month time frame means the government has the operating money necessary to function through March, removing one issue from the list of difficult questions that will face Congress in December.",Yes
"But it doesn’t resolve broader fiscal issues that will arise after the November election, including how to deal with scheduled tax increases and additional automatic defense and domestic spending cuts set to take effect in January.",No
"Reid and Boehner said that more time is needed to draft the deal into legislation and that it will not come up for votes in the House and the Senate until September, when Congress returns from a six-week recess.",Yes
"Still, Reid said the agreement would provide the government stability in coming months and allow Congress to quickly turn to other pressing fiscal issues after the election.",No
"“It puts this out of the way, and that’s very important,” he said.",No
White House press secretary Jay Carney called the deal a “welcome development.”,No
"“The president has made clear that it is essential that the legislation to fund the government adheres to the funding levels agreed to by both parties last year,” he said. ",No
“The president will work with leaders in both parties to sign a bill that accomplishes these goals.”,No
Democrats and the White House have insisted for months on the $1.047 trillion level — a spending limit that both parties agreed to in last summer’s deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.,Yes
"Some conservatives have chafed, viewing the number as a maximum spending level and insisting that Congress should push actual spending for the year even lower. ",No
A budget for the full year outlined by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) set agency spending at $1.028 trillion for the year.,Yes
But a number of GOP freshman who have regularly voted against spending measures — and who exactly a year ago helped push the nation to the brink of its first default in pursuit of deep budget cuts — indicated Tuesday that they could sign on to the deal.,No
"They argued that a short-term concession could improve Republicans’ leverage, if they win the White House and take control of the Senate in November, to achieve more dramatic change. ",No
It is the kind of big-picture strategizing that Republican leaders have sometimes fretted their restive newest members lacked.,No
"Freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said he is deeply troubled by the $1.047 trillion number, but is likely to support the legislation.",Yes
"“It’s a lousy deal,” he said.",No
 “But I think in the long run it gets us a better chance to get what we want.”,No
"Conservatives argue that a six-month extension, lasting through March 2013, would deny Democrats the chance to use the threat of a shutdown as leverage during a broader tax-and-spending debate set to take place during Congress’s lame-duck session in December.",Yes
“Lame-duck sessions are usually a disaster. ,No
"The less we’re doing during the lame duck, the better,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a freshman who has criticized GOP leaders as not slashing spending quickly enough.",No
"He cautioned that he is concerned that the deal may allow continued funding for the implementation of the Democrats’ health-care reform law, a sticking point that could spell trouble for the deal.",No
"Twenty years ago, the Earth Summit in Rio resulted in a Convention on Biological Diversity, now signed by 193 nations, to prevent species loss. ",Yes
But can we tell how many species are becoming extinct?,No
"One statement on the Convention's website claims: ""We are indeed experiencing the greatest wave of extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.""",No
"While that may (or may not) be true, the next sentence is spuriously precise: ""Every hour three species disappear.",Yes
"Every day up to 150 species are lost.""",Yes
"Even putting aside the apparent mathematical error in that claim (on the face of it, if three species are disappearing every hour, 72 would be lost every day) there is an obvious problem in generating any such number. ",Yes
No-one knows how many species exist. ,No
" And if we don't know a species exists, we won't miss it when it's gone.",No
"""Current estimates of the number of species can vary from, let's say, two million species to over 30 or even 100 million species,"" says Dr Braulio Dias, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. ",Yes
"""So we don't have a good estimate to an order of magnitude of precision,"" he says.",No
It is possible to count the number of species known to be extinct. ,No
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) does just that.,No
It has listed 801 animal and plant species (mostly animal) known to have gone extinct since 1500.,Yes
"But if it's really true that up to 150 species are being lost every day, shouldn't we expect to be able to name more than 801 extinct species in 512 years?",Yes
"Professor Georgina Mace, who works in the Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College London, says the IUCN's method is helpful but inadequate. ",No
" ""It is never going to get us the answers we need,"" she says. ",No
That's why scientists prefer to use a mathematical model to estimate species loss.,No
"Recently, however, that model has been attacked in the pages of Nature. ",No
"Professor Stephen Hubbell from the University of California, Los Angeles, says that an error in the model means that it has - for years - over-estimated the rate of species loss.",No
"The model applies something called the ""species to area relationship"" to habitat loss. ",No
"Put simply, an estimate is made of the number of species in a given area, or habitat - the larger the area, the greater the number of species are said to be in it.",No
"Then the model is worked backwards - the smaller the area, the fewer the species.",No
"In other words, if you measure habitat loss, you can use the model to calculate how many species are being lost as that habitat gets smaller.",No
"The problem, says Hubbell, is that the model does not work in reverse. ",No
"""The method,"" he says, ""when extrapolated backward, doesn't take into account the fact that you need to remove more area to get to the whole range of a species than you need to remove area to find the first individual of a species.""",No
"Hubbell's point is that if you increase a habitat by, say, five hectares, and your calculations show that you expect there to be five new species in those five hectares, it is wrong to assume that reversing the model, and shrinking your habitat, eliminates five species.",Yes
"That's because it takes more area to establish extinction - to show that every individual in a species has been eliminated - than it does to discover a new species, which requires coming across just one individual of that species. ",Yes
Hubbell says when corrected the model shows about half as many species going extinct as previously reported.,Yes
"Unfortunately for scientists trying to measure species loss, the problems don't end there. ",No
They also need to calculate the 'background rate' of extinction. ,No
" If you want to work out the impact of human life on biodiversity, you need to know how many species would have gone extinct anyway without us being here. ",No
 Mace says that is difficult.,No
"""Background rates are not constant either,"" she says. ",No
"""If you look back through the history of life on Earth, there have been major periods of extinctions. Extinction rates vary a lot.""",No
The level of uncertainty faced by researchers in this field means it is perhaps not surprising that no-one can be sure of the scale of species loss. ,No
" It also means that when a representative of the Convention of Biological Diversity claimed ""every hour three species disappear"" he must have known it was too precise.",Yes
But the fact that the precise extinction rate is unknowable does not prove that the problem is imagined.,No
"Braulio Dias, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, says: ""We know that the drivers behind species loss are mostly increasing - land conversion and degradation, pollution, climate change. ",No
"And of course the human population is still growing and consumption is growing - and most of that consumption is not sustainable.""",No
"Professor Hubbell, too, thinks species loss is a serious issue, even though he believes it has been exaggerated.",No
"There is, though, one other problem faced by anyone who wants to call attention to the issue - the fear that people are inclined to care more about so-called charismatic animals (mostly larger animals which we recognise) than the millions of nameless and microscopic organisms which are also included in species loss models.",No
Hubbell says we should be at least as concerned about such seemingly unimportant species.,No
"""The proportion of the world's species that are charismatic organisms is really tiny,"" he says. ",No
"""From a biomass point of view, this is a bacterial planet.",No
"It's a very parochial view to assume that we should care only about elephants and zebras.""",No
"But if people do care more about charismatic animals than bacteria, which seems likely, then it might prove difficult to get those people to take the issue seriously unless such animals are threatened.",No
"A number of charismatic species, or sub-species, have become extinct in the wild, but have been kept alive in captivity thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts and campaigners.",No
Others have gone extinct - like the Pyrenean Ibex or the Baiji river dolphin.,No
"But compared to the number of species which exist in the world, even taking the lowest estimates of that number, such known cases are very few.",No
"According to IUCN data, for example, only one animal has been definitely identified as having gone extinct since 2000. It was a mollusc.",Yes
Manchester United has said it plans to raise as much as $330m (£210m) in a share listing in New York.,Yes
"In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the football club said it would sell 16.7 million shares at between $16 and $20 each.",Yes
But it also revealed that revenue had fallen in the last year as they were knocked out of the Champions League.,No
"Manchester United was recently called the most valuable club in sport, worth $2.23bn, according to Forbes magazine.",Yes
"The club has been controlled since 2005 by billionaire US sports investors the Glazer family, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football team.",Yes
The Glazers' Class B shares will have 10 times the voting power of the Class A shares sold to the public.,Yes
United has said it plans to use the proceeds to repay debt.,No
The club currently has £437m of debt and £70m in cash.,Yes
"In the regulatory filing, the club said its total revenue for the year to June was between £315m and £320m, down as much as 5% from last year.",Yes
That was mainly due to a 11-13% drop in broadcasting revenues - to £102m to £104m - after the team failed to make it past the group stages of Europe's premier club football competiton.,Yes
"Man Utd said profit for the year from continuing operations will be as much as £23m, an increase of as much as 77% from the previous year due to tax credits.",Yes
The team spent a net £50m on players.,Yes
The company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands on 30 April.,Yes
"On Monday, Manchester United also said it signed a new deal to have its shirts sponsored by US car brand Chevrolet.",No
"The deal for an ""undisclosed amount"" is for seven years and begins from the 2014-2015 season, the club said.",Yes
"Chevrolet, which is made by General Motors, takes over from current sponsor Aon.",No
The Glazers borrowed large sums of money to buy the club and the interest payments on this debt are onerous.,No
"In 2010, the owners converted these loans into a bond in order to reduce the interest, but analysts say the share sale demonstrates how the club remains weighed down by its heavy debts, despite its huge global fan base and promotional and marketing efforts.",Yes
"The Premier League giant, who came second last season and have won a record 19 titles, is listing on the New York Stock Exchange.",Yes
Planemaker Boeing is to sell up to 100 planes to Mexican airline Aeromexico in a deal worth $11bn (£7bn).,Yes
The news came on the same day Boeing announced a 3% increase in second quarter net income to $967m (£625m) on revenues of $20bn (£13bn).,Yes
"Its results were boosted by sales of commercial aircraft, the company said.",No
"Boeing strengthened its outlook for 2012, increasing earnings per share guidance to between $4.40 and $4.60, up from between $4.15 and $4.35.",Yes
"The results brought half-year net income up to $1.89bn, a 24% rise over the same period last year.",Yes
"Chief executive Jim McNerney said: ""Increased revenues and strong operating performance across both our major businesses drove significantly improved first-half 2012 results for Boeing.""",Yes
"Commercial aeroplane deliveries rose 27%, he said, while ""our defence, space and security business also produced higher revenues and strong margins in a difficult market environment"".",Yes
Aeromexico said it had signed an agreement with Boeing to buy 90 Boeing 737-8 MAX and eight 787-9 Dreamliner aeroplanes.,Yes
"The only blot on Boeing's landscape was its Network and Space Systems division, which saw second quarter revenues fall 9% to $1.89bn.",Yes
Boeing's shares were up nearly 2% to $72.43 in mid-morning trade.,Yes
"In April, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, which uses 20% less fuel thanks to its lighter, composite materials, made its first UK test flights.",Yes
Nigeria's oil regulator has asked industry giant Shell to pay $5bn (£3.2bn) for a spill off the country's southern coast last December.,Yes
The disclosure was made during a parliamentary hearing on the matter.,No
"A leak at the Bonga field during a transfer of oil to a tanker led to 40,000 barrels spilling into the Atlantic Ocean.",Yes
A Shell spokesperson said there was no need for a fine as everything had been done to prevent environmental damage.,No
"The Bonga field, operated by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (Snepco), is approximately 120km (75 miles) offshore and produces 10% of Nigeria's oil exports.",Yes
The spill was contained before it reached the shore.,No
The head of Nigeria's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency urged MPs on the House of Representatives's environment committee to approve his proposal.,No
"""Although adequate containment measures were put in place to combat the Bonga oil spill, it however posed a serious environmental threat to the offshore environments,"" Peter Idabor said.",No
"""The people could not fish after a long period after the spill,"" he later told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.",No
"""So that's why we are looking at the damages. ",No
" If the people said they will not pay, so be it. ",No
 But we want to make it very clear that it's wrong for them to say they cannot pay. ,No
"Are they denying that they spilled 40,000 barrels of crude oil into the waters?"" he asked.",Yes
"But Shell said it believed there no ""basis in law for such a fine"".",No
"""Snepco responded to this incident with professionalism and acted with the consent of the necessary authorities at all times to prevent environmental impact as a result of the incident,"" a spokesperson for the Anglo-Dutch company said in a statement sent to the BBC.",No
Most previous oil spills in Nigeria - one of the world's biggest oil producers - have been onshore.,No
Many have been caused by sabotage or militant attacks.,No
"Last year, a UN report into spills in Ogoniland found that the region could take 30 years to recover.",Yes
"In March, lawyers representing a fishing community in Ogoniland began a case against Shell in a London court over recent oil spills.",No
All two to 17-year-olds in the UK are to be offered annual flu vaccinations.,Yes
"If 30% take up the offer, there will be 11,000 fewer hospitalisations and 2,000 fewer deaths each year, the chief medical officer for England says.",Yes
"The children will be immunised using a nasal spray rather than an injection, starting in 2014 at the earliest.",Yes
"The injectable flu vaccine will continue to be offered to the over-65s, pregnant women and those with medical conditions such as asthma.",Yes
Children usually get a mild and sometimes unpleasant illness from seasonal flu.,No
They rarely suffer complications.,No
Youngsters who do are usually in the at-risk groups already offered a flu vaccine.,No
"The Joint Committe on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the new strategy would avert a large number of flu cases among children as well as many severe cases and deaths, mostly among the elderly and others vulnerable to the infection.",No
"Chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, told me: ""Even with moderate uptake of 30% it's estimated that this should result in 11,000 fewer hospitalisations and 2,000 fewer deaths each year.",Yes
"""But we will aim to get a much higher proportion of children immunised and that will save even more lives.""",No
Those figures are based on an unpublished study from the Health Protection Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.,No
"Prof Davies said most of the details of the immunisation programme had still to be worked out, including negotiating a contract price for the vaccine, which is marketed by AstraZeneca.",No
The Department of Health said the company would not have the capacity to deliver enough vaccine until 2014 at the earliest.,Yes
"Fluenz is a live attenuated - weakened - intranasal vaccine, which has been used for several years in the United States under the brand name FluMist.",No
"In the minutes of its latest meeting the JCVI says the vaccine has ""a good safety profile"" and may be more widely accepted by parents and children because it is given in the form of a nasal spray.",No
"But side effects can include mild flu-like symptoms, including a runny nose or sore throat.",No
"Prof Adam Finn, consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, said: ""This is a good idea as we know it's effective and safe and flu can be a serious illness in childhood, not just in old age.",No
"""There should be time to do some more research before we introduce the vaccine to help us predict how well such a programme would be accepted and would work.""",No
"The expectation is that under-fives will be vaccinated in GP surgeries and older children at school, but the JCVI says there are currently ""far too few"" school nurses to enable this to happen.",Yes
"The committee also said it would be a ""huge expansion"" of the immunisation programme, more than doubling the number of vaccinations offered to children before they reach adulthood.",No
Nine million children will be eligible for the nasal flu vaccine and the price tag could be more than £100m a year.,Yes
"Children under nine are likely to require two doses of the vaccine spaced a few weeks apart, with older children needing one dose.",Yes
The UK is thought to be the first country in the world to offer free flu immunisation to all children. ,No
Like all other vaccines here it will not be compulsory.,No
"The JCVI says there may be ""mixed reactions"" to the flu immunisation plans and it recommends an information campaign for parents, children and healthcare staff.",No
All immunisation is intended to benefit the wider population as well as the individual through what is known as herd immunity.,No
There are already examples where the benefit is largely for others.,No
All children are immunised against rubella (also known as German measles). ,No
 The virus causes only a mild infection in children.,No
But if a woman catches the infection during early pregnancy it can cause serious damage to the developing baby.,No
"By immunising all children against rubella, it provides protection to others, as yet unborn.",No
"In the same way, extending flu vaccination to healthy children will provide most health benefits to others.",No
"Prof Davies said healthy children would get real benefits from avoiding flu, which could be a ""miserable"" disease.",No
"She added: ""Don't forget it will also protect their baby brother or sister, and their grand-parents, so it really is worth doing.""",No
"Colombia's pure cocaine production has fallen 25% in the past year, and 72% since 2001, according to US figures.",Yes
"This places the country behind Peru and Bolivia for the first time since 1995, the White House report says.",Yes
"It credits the decline to Plan Colombia, a US-backed initiative to crack down on Colombian drug cartels.",No
"The report diverges from a UN study released last week, which said cocaine production had remained stable.",No
The latest US estimates were released by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).,No
"According to the new survey, production of pure cocaine in Colombia fell from an estimated 700 tonnes in 2001 to 195 tonnes in 2011",Yes
"In comparison, Peru had produced 358 tonnes in 2010 and Bolivia 265 tonnes in 2011, the report said.",Yes
ONDCP director Gil Kerlikowske called the study's results a historic achievement.,No
"""They have tremendous implications, not just for the United States and the Western hemisphere"", he said.",No
"""This is the first time since 1995 that Colombia is producing less cocaine than either Peru of Bolivia.""",Yes
"Mr Kerlikowske said the decline was largely the result of Plan Colombia, a US taxpayer-funded military-aid programme.",No
The $7.5bn initiative was launched in 1999 to help the Colombian government combat drug trafficking and terrorism.,Yes
"""The security threat that the United States and Colombia faced in 1999 is gone,"" said Mr Kerlikowske.",Yes
"He added the drop in Colombia's production had also coincided with a decline in US cocaine overdose deaths, positive workplace drug tests and domestic cocaine seizures.",No
But the White House figures conflict with a report released last week by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.,No
"The UN report estimated Colombia's cocaine production at 345 tonnes in 2011, which it said represented a drop of only 1% compared with 2010.",Yes
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said bad weather and a switch of the landing runway led to a miscommunication on Tuesday afternoon.,No
"The incident was first reported by the Washington Post, which said all three planes were operated by US Airways.",No
"Officials vowed ""appropriate action to address the miscommunication"".

",No
"During a conference call with reporters on Thursday, FAA administrator Michael Huerta acknowledged the planes had been too close, but said they were not on a collision course.",No
"An audio recording of discussions between the landing plane and the airport's traffic control tower shows the confusion.

",No
"At about 14:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday, the air control tower ordered the landing plane to make an abrupt turn to the south.

",Yes
"""We were clear at the river back there,"" a person in the plane's cockpit says to the control tower. ""What happened?""

",No
"The tower answers: ""We're trying to figure this out, too. Stand by.""

",No
"The FAA said preliminary information showed the landing plane came within 500ft (150m) vertical separation and 1.7 miles (2.7km) of one departing plane and 600ft and 2.8 miles of the second plane.

",Yes
"The standard separation requirement is 1,000ft and 3.5 miles.

",Yes
"In March 2011, two jets landed without assistance from the Reagan National Airport's control tower after a supervisor fell asleep.

",No
"After the incident, an additional controller was added to the midnight shift at the airport.

",No
"An African snail appears to be on a campaign to conquer central and southern America. But how much mess can a mollusc make - and are they really deadly to humans?

",No
"At an average size of just a couple of inches long, the so-called giant African land snail (achatina fulica) probably wouldn't qualify for a starring role in a 1950s horror film, but it is still wreaking havoc in several South American countries and the US state of Florida.

",Yes
"The threat lies in its ability to multiply at enormous speed. The snails reach maturity after a year and can then produce 200-300 eggs a month, leading to huge infestations within a short space of time. The snails, which are native to East Africa, appear on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of the world's top 100 invasive species.

",Yes
"In one Colombian town alone, Buenaventura, more than eight tonnes of snails have been collected since an invasion began two years ago. In Ecuador the problem is so widespread that they have been found in half of the country's 24 provinces, including the Galapagos Islands.

",Yes
"In the fields, they are an agricultural nuisance. In the cities, they clutter up the sidewalks and rip the stucco off houses. Such is the density with which they congregate at the height of an invasion, that they have even been known to cause slicks on highways.

",No
"But the snails are not just an unsightly pest. They can also kill.

",No
"In tropical regions, giant African snails, as well as other types of slugs and snails, can carry a nematode - a kind of parasite - called the rat lungworm. These minute worms, if ingested, enter the circulation and travel to the brain, where they can lead to eosinophilic meningitis.

",Yes
"Symptoms range from headaches to tingling, numbness and involuntary flexing of muscles. In severe cases, sufferers may go into coma and die.

",No
"Snails have been blamed for three deaths in Ecuador, out of almost 100 documented cases of the disease in the country. There have also been reported cases in Venezuela, Peru and Brazil. In East Asia, where snails are eaten uncooked or partially cooked, incidences of the syndrome are thought to be much higher.

",Yes
"""People touch the snails and then they touch food and that could be enough,"" says Professor Luz Elena Velasquez at the University of Antioquia, Colombia.

",No
"""And you can come into contact with their slime very easily, because they release a lot of it and they go everywhere. They're not shy at all - they go into houses.""

",No
"Rob Cowie, a research professor at the University of Hawaii, has devoted the last 20 years to studying molluscs. He remembers meeting ""a young surfer guy in his early 20s"" who had contracted eosinophilic meningitis two years earlier.

",No
"""He was kind of two-thirds recovered. He could walk again, but it was a stumbling walk. And he could talk but it wasn't quite right yet and he kind of didn't look you in the eye. It's just terrible.""

",Yes
"It seems the unfortunate man had accidentally eaten a slug in lettuce.

",No
"""That's one of the two pathways you get this disease - inadvertently eating a slug in lettuce or something like that. You can have a tiny slug that's just a couple of millimetres long and that could be infested with thousands of worms. And if you don't carefully wash your lettuce, you would swallow those worms.""

",Yes
"The other pathway to infection is to come into contact with a slug or snail on purpose, for example by eating one.

",No
"In the past the snails were much larger - up to 10in - but nowadays an African snail would make a snack rather than a meal. Prepared properly, they are quite safe to eat. The muscular ""foot"" of the creature can be cut off, cooked and eaten as a miniature steak - although opinions vary as regards its gastronomic merit.

",Yes
"Raw snail sashimi, on the other hand, is not a good idea at all. It's thought that people in South America do occasionally eat raw snails, either because they have been dared to do so or because of tribal traditions.

",No
"""Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about the benefits of snails,"" says Juan Camilo Restrepo, at the environmental agency of Antioquia in Colombia. ""For some, they are an attractive food, because they are very big and a good source of protein.

",No
"""But many others believe their slime has infinite healing powers - people use it to treat scars, to fight allergies and so on. They transport it, sell it and keep it at home.""

",No
"Disgusting as this may sound to some, the belief that snail slime has restorative properties is not a new one. The mid-90s saw an explosion in ""wonder creams"" from companies processing snail slime on an industrial scale. The cream is used by some people to treat varicose veins and skin blemishes.

",No
"According to Rob Cowie, if a snail skin product is manufactured on an industrial scale it is not going to present a health hazard because the nematodes present in the snails will die before the product is put to use.

",No
"However, if people are extracting slime from snails for their own use, the situation is different.

",No
"""If you're manufacturing slime on a backyard scale, then [the processing time] will be faster and if you're smearing it on your face, there's a chance it could go in your mouth,"" he says.

",No
"""I wouldn't discount the possibility you could get ill that way.""

",No
"It is thought that the trade in snails for private medicinal or cosmetic use is what caused the outbreak in Colombia in the first place. The creatures were reportedly brought into the country by a ""culebrero"", a salesman of herbs and animals with supposed healing properties. These salesmen are often seen in South American cities, selling snails and homemade snail creams in jars.

",No
"The story goes that after a slow day in the market, the culebrero threw his unsold African snails in a dry river bed in Santa Fe de Antioquia, in the north of the country.

",No
"Now the infestation has gone beyond the point at which the authorities believe they can realistically do much about it - the giant African snail is in South America for good. Although a clean-up task force is still in operation in Santa Fe, the Colombian government is switching its energies to education campaigns.

",No
"""We have to learn how to manage it, full eradication is no longer feasible,"" Valasquez says.

",No
"For her, management means educating the locals about the risks of handling the giant African snail, and learning how to distinguish the dangerous incomer from a local giant snail, the megalobulimus oblongus.

",No
"This is, Cowie believes, a mistake, since ultimately the killer is not the giant African snails but the rat lungworm. He believes that whether or not the nematode came to South America with the giant African snail, now that it is there, it could be carried by native snails too.

",No
"""A focus on the giant African snail is short-sighted,"" he says. ""There is absolutely no reason why the native megalobulimus could not act as a host for the worm. My guess is that it could do so perfectly well.""

",No
"However, he agrees with the decision to move away from attempts at total eradication.

",No
"""The problem with any of these eradication programmes is getting the last one. You can get rid of a million and just leave three and you've still got a problem.""

",Yes
"Nevertheless, that is precisely what they are planning to do a thousand miles north, in the US state of Florida. And for them it's not a new fight - they eliminated the giant African snail once before in the 1960s, after a boy brought three of the creatures back from Hawaii as a gift for his grandmother. She didn't want the snails and so she threw them into the back garden.

",Yes
"Nine years and $1m (£0.64m) later, they were finally removed - one of only two successful eradication programmes of the snails ever, worldwide.

",Yes
"The state has already spent a similar sum of money since the new invasion began in September 2011. A team of specialists is currently destroying around a thousand snails a week, using a bait of iron phosphate.

",No
"Besides the snail-picking, the government is asking the public to help with the clean-up, having distributed ""most wanted"" posters throughout the state.

",No
"Denise Feiber, of the Florida Department of Agriculture, says that they have collected more than 72,000 snails so far.

",Yes
"""So we have spent a lot of resources and as you can see from the numbers collected and their ability to reproduce rapidly, this program will not be wrapped up in a few months,"" she says. ""This will be ongoing for a number of years probably, until we can successfully declare eradication.""

",No
"But there is one piece of good news for Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia. It seems that the giant African snail follows a trajectory common to many invasive species, in which an explosion in the populations of the creatures is followed by a slow, steady decline.

",No
"They will never go away, but they may become what Professor Cowie describes as ""just about bearable"".

",No