The Morning Report (8-8-06)

The Morning Report

8-8-06

By:

The Rose Nesbitt Corporation

Bundles of Panda Joy

In Beijing earlier today a six-year-old female panda gave birth to the largest cub ever to be born in captivity.

The cub, born to Zhang Ka after a 34 hour labor, weighed in at 218 grams (half a pound) and while the doesn’t sound that heavy most baby pandas weigh between 83 and 190 grams when they are first born and are more often than not nowhere near 200 grams.

What makes this birth especially wonderful, and surprising, is that it was Zhang Ka’s very first birth and that she was born in the wild.

Two twin panda sisters, also six years old, gave birth to two pairs of twin male cubs -- with much less drama -- on Sunday and Monday in the Chengdu Giant Panda Reproduction and Research Center near Wolong.

These births brought the number of pandas born in captivity in China up to six in just two days.

It is common knowledge that the panda is one of the most exotic and endangered animals in the world today and these animals are national treasures.

It is suspected that there are only 1,600 in wild pandas live in nature reserves in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

It is very, very hard to breed giant pandas in captivity as females only ovulate once a year, with a slim 24- to 48-hour window for breeding.

These little cubs are very cute, almost hairless, pink and blind their mortality rate is very high and it is wonderful to have five new additions to the panda population.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is raising its starting pay in about a third of its nearly 4,000 U.S. located stores by an average of 6 percent. They are also introducing wage caps and for the first time on each type of job in all their stores.

The nation's largest private employer said the changes would help it remain competitive with other retailers and meet a need for workers and managers as it continues to expand… and expand… and expand.

Wal-Mart has more than 1.3 million U.S. employees, which it refers to as associates… isn’t that just precious.

The worker’s pay and benefits have been under fire from union-backed critics, who call the wages skimpy.

Wal-Mart has defended its average full-time hourly wage of $10.11 and launched lower cost health plans this year with premiums as low as $11 month in some areas.

"We've created about 240,000 jobs in the last three years and we are continuing to grow. We need to ensure that we have the most appropriate classification and pay programs to meet our growth needs," Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.

The changes help in two ways, Simley said; higher starting pay makes Wal-Mart more attractive to new workers and the wage caps give current associates an incentive to move up to higher positions if they want to make more money.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer did not specify the new starting rates or give examples for the new pay caps. Simley said the numbers vary too much by local market conditions across the country to provide an accurate average figure.

Susan Chambers, executive vice president of the company's People Division, said in a statement that Wal-Mart remained competitive with benefits including health care, 401K plans, profit sharing and annual incentives.

Chambers said that was why "people stand in line to apply for Wal-Mart jobs."

A Dead Moose Has Gone Missing.

The 600-pound bull was shot to death by police Tuesday night after being found seriously injured by the side of Route 272, where it had apparently been hit by car but not properly killed.

But officers from the state Department of Environmental Protection could not find the carcass when they went to retrieve it the next day.

State wildlife biologist Howard Kilpatrick said someone may have taken the road kill to eat it. Quite a few people who learned of the collision called the Department of Environmental Protection’s 24-hour emergency number to ask if they could take the moose for the meat.

They were answered in the negative.

"No one had permission to take it. Our goal was to look at its general condition and gain its biological data," Kilpatrick said. "The moose population is expanding but there is no hunting season to give us a chance to examine carcasses."

It is illegal to remove a turkey, moose or bear from the road. A deer can be taken by the driver of the vehicle that strikes it after an incident report is filed with the state.