Pet-friendly dating sites match up people, pooches

LOS ANGELES — On these dating sites, a passion for pets will help you find more than just puppy love.

Sites like PetsDating.com and YouMustLoveDogsDating.com have found a new niche as singles flock to computers and smartphones to find relationships, connecting dog owners to potential mates who enjoy long walks in the dog park and slobbery canine kisses as much as they do. Many of the sites encourage users to bring their dogs on first dates to break the ice or size up canine chemistry.

Many dating sites cater to religious, cultural and political preferences, but won't focus as heavily on interests like pets, music or travel, said Karen North, a professor of social media at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Journalism.

"If you find somebody with the same lifestyle passion, you don't have to start out at square one," North said.

When Joanie Pelzer signed up with a dog-friendly online dating service a few years ago, she was honest about her Chihuahua — he likes people more than other dogs, craves attention, steals food and can't stand to ride in the backseat of a car.

Even a man who loved animals as much as she did couldn't keep up with her dog's quirks. On their first date, her Chihuahua, Hubbell, stole the man's breakfast as they drove from New York City to Long Island. They only had one more date.

"I still wonder if Hubbell didn't have something to do with that," said Pelzer, 47, an actress who runs her own social media company and met the man on PetsDating.com.

Despite that setback, having a common interest such as pets can help the search for love.

"Having a theme that is ... about one's passion makes it feel like you are looking for a needle in a smaller and far more relevant and appealing haystack," said Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a professor of marketing at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

The founder of one of the dog-focused dating services, YouMustLoveDogsDating.com, agreed.

"Dogs on first dates are amazing icebreakers," said Kris Rotonda, who started up the site last year that now has 2 million members. "You find out right off the bat how everyone in a relationship will fit in."

But other veterans of the dating-service industry say focusing on a canine connection only adds an extra hurdle to finding love.

"When you consider how challenging it already is to find someone who offers what you are seeking in a romantic partner, and who seeks what you are offering, and where there is also mutual chemistry, and the timing is right ... you have to wonder who in their right mind would want to make it even more challenging by insisting on canine chemistry," said Trish McDermott, who spent 10 years as the dating expert and spokeswoman for Match.com.

McDermott points out that new love is hard enough to foster, without any added issues.

"To squeeze doggie behavior under the first date microscope and to analyze every little wag, nip or bark as further commentary on compatibility is just another way to uncover the fatal flaw of an otherwise potential romance," added McDermott, who now works for OneGoodLove.com, a gay, lesbian and bisexual matchmaking service.

McDermott's concerns won't change Pelzer's plans to return to PetsDating.com. She remembers unpleasant run-ins with dates from sites that don't cater to animal lovers — once a man nudged her pooch off the couch.

"That was the last time we were together," Pelzer said. "You don't do that to my dog."

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Argentina to pay creditors, avoid US courts

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina will make its next round of scheduled debt payments, the economy minister said Wednesday as he defended a new plan to pay creditors locally and avoid the jurisdiction of a U.S. court that forced the country into default last month.

Under legislation that still must be submitted to Congress, the country will no longer use the Bank of New York as a trustee for about $30 billion in bonds and will service debt through an Argentine bank, Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said.

The change will allow the country to make $200 million in interest payments scheduled for Sept. 30 to those bondholders who voluntarily accept the change, Kicillof said a day after President Cristina Fernandez announced the new plan.

The economy minister sought to minimize the scope of the plan, saying it amounted to "a change of venue, not jurisdiction," but it could allow the country to emerge from default while complicating a bitter legal dispute with U.S. investors.

The proposal is intended as a way around a U.S. court order that blocked Argentina from making $539 million in interest payments on July 30, triggering the country's second default in 13 years.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa, whose order prevented Bank of New York from distributing Argentina's interest payments until the country settles a decade-long battle with other creditors, has warned that changing the jurisdiction of payments would have "serious legal consequences."

Government officials, who have bristled at what they see as an attack on its sovereignty by the U.S. courts, say Argentina isn't really in default since it has attempted to make the interest payments but was barred from doing so. Kicillof noted the country has reserves of $29 billion on hand.

"There is no default. We are going to keep paying," he said.

The new local payments would apply to bondholders who accepted lower-value bonds following the country's 2001 default and could further complicate the battle with holdout creditors.

Congress is expected to pass the bill since the holdout creditors are reviled in Argentina as "vultures" who have sought to undermine the country's sovereignty by battling in the U.S. courts for full payment on the previously defaulted bonds.

Argentina's 2001 default on more than $100 billion was at the time the largest sovereign debt default in history and is at the heart of the legal dispute behind the latest default. A minority of creditors, led by a New York-based hedge fund, refused to accept deeply discounted exchange bonds and obtained a U.S. court order requiring the South American government to pay them in full, a total of about $1.5 billion.

Argentina has said it cannot pay the holdout creditors without offering a new settlement to the more than 90 percent of bondholders who accepted the exchanges in 2005 and 2010, resulting in a standoff that threatens to derail an already weak economy and make it even harder for the South American country to gain access to international credit in the future.

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GE Healthcare Life Sciences to open HQ in Marlboro

Marlboro will be home to GE Healthcare Life Sciences' new $21 million, 160,000-square-foot headquarters for U.S. operations, the company announced today.

"Our new facility in Massachusetts will position us for continued innovation and competition in such a fast-paced, innovative industry," said Kieran Murphy, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Life Sciences in a statement released by the company. "We will be close to industry-leading talent, customers, and world-class academic and medical institutions across all the industry sectors we serve, from biotech and pharma, to diagnostics and medical devices."

The headquarters, scheduled to open in spring 2015, will establish a new site for more than 500 GE Healthcare Life Sciences employees and create more than 220 new jobs, company officials said.

"Today, Massachusetts' life sciences sectors are the fastest-growing sectors of our economy. We look forward to welcoming the U.S. life sciences headquarters of GE Healthcare and are pleased that the company will create a substantial number of new, STEM-related job opportunities in central Massachusetts," Gov. Deval Patrick said in the statement.

This investment will transform a currently unoccupied space into state-of-the-art labs, customer application facilities, and office space to complement GE Healthcare Life Sciences' existing manufacturing capability in Westboro.

"When fully operational, the new facility will bring more than 220 highly qualified new job opportunities to the area, including highly-skilled positions such as lab technicians, biologists, medical doctors, process engineers, and customer service representatives," the company said.

"Marlboro continues to be a center for innovation. This GE Healthcare Life Sciences investment, adding more than 220 new jobs with an exciting biotechnology leader, is proof that innovation is thriving outside route 128, and of Marlborough's ability to build the necessary infrastructure to attract top tier, global life sciences companies," said Marlboro Mayor Arthur Vigeant in the statement.

Last week, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center CEO Susan Windham-Bannister told the Herald the organization had been in discussions with GE Healthcare over the past two years about a move.

"We're talking about a company that's more diversified, has a big imaging component to it, and a big bioinformatics component," she said. "This is a different kind of company. We're really excited about that. They've certainly had a modest presence in Massachusetts, but for them to make this decision is big."

A 2013 report for the Boston Foundation, conducted by Bluestone and Alan Clayton-Matthews of Northeastern, found the state's life sciences industry growing at a faster pace than any other industry in Massachusetts — and creating more jobs than in any other state since 2008.

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German retailer opening US flagship in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI — Picture this: A woman walking down the street wearing a dirndl skirt and bust-hugging bodice paired with ankle boots. Or a man sporting lederhosen — leather shorts, traditionally worn with suspenders — with a T-shirt and sneakers.

Wiesnkoenig (pronounced VEE'-sehn-koh-neg), the official supplier of lederhosen for the Munich Oktoberfest, is hoping its fashion-forward take on traditional German clothing takes off in America with the opening of its flagship U.S. store inside a Cincinnati brewery.

Wiesnkoenig USA planned a launch party for the store Wednesday in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine historic neighborhood, which was founded by German immigrants in the 1800s and is now home to a fledgling brewery district.

"We're not selling costumes to make it look like Germans," said Oliver Pfund, a Wiesnkoenig consultant who lives in Munich and his helping his sister, a Munich-born Cincinnati resident, launch the store, which opens to the public Thursday. "We want to show people here in the U.S. you can wear the lederhosen with Chuck Taylors, you don't have to wear the suspenders," he said. "Or you can wear the dirndl with cowboy boots."

Think Bavarian countryside meets Abercrombie.

Founded in 2007, Wiesnkoenig has five stores throughout Germany and sells in department stores there and in Switzerland and Austria.

The Cincinnati store will be its first presence in the U.S., and the company is eying other expansion opportunities in the states.

Cincinnati was a natural choice for Wiesnkoenig, Pfund said.

Not only is Cincinnati sister cities with Munich, it hosts the largest Oktoberfest in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, drawing a record 600,000 visitors at last year's event.

Wiesnkoenig is opening inside one of the city's biggest success stories, the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company, once the fifth-largest brewery in the nation before Prohibition hit in 1920 and it closed.

In 2010, a longtime beer seller and executive decided to revive the old brand and opened the new Christian Moerlein in a long-shuttered brewery that had underground lagering cellars and a malt house from the 1860s. Its owners plan to turn the brewery into a multimillion-dollar tour facility that includes a rooftop beer garden overlooking the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and the downtown Cincinnati skyline.

Pfund said the brewery was perfect for Wiesnkoenig's first foray into the U.S. market.

"Obviously the advantage at the brewery are the tours in the building, the constant traffic in front of our store of people interested in the beer culture and the brewing culture," he said. "We hope they have an interest in the German culture, as well."

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Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP

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Egypt says rolling blackouts to end in 4 months

CAIRO — Egyptian officials promised Wednesday to end rolling power blackouts that have plagued the country within four months, blaming the outages on a fuel shortage, hot weather and poor maintenance of power plants.

Neighborhoods in Egypt sink into darkness for hours during the day, leaving millions without power. The crisis has caused water cuts, affected hospitals and cut communications as many had difficulty recharging their mobile phones.

Parts of the capital lose power numerous times a day, plunging entire neighborhoods into darkness for an hour or more each time.

In one incident, doctors were forced to carry out a two-hour surgical procedure to remove a woman's uterus at a public hospital in Ismailia city with only lights from cellphones to see with, after the frequent power cuts also ruined the building's generators. Pictures of the operation were posted by Egypt's official Doctors' Syndicate.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehlab described the outages as a "severe problem" and "complicated." He linked them to several factors, including a shortage of natural gas, out-of-service power plants needing maintenance and hot weather.

He had previously blamed some of the outages on 300 attacks by saboteurs on electrical lines, which he said had led up to a 15 percent reduction in production by up to 15 percent. At the time, Mehlab was referring to Islamist supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

On Monday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who led the overthrow of Morsi, told governors during five-hour meeting to guard electrical lines from attacks.

"The needy people are in pain because of attacks on pylons that cause blackouts for one, two or more hours," el-Sissi said during the meeting, parts of which were broadcast on state television.

Electricity Minister Mohammed Shaker on Wednesday blamed the problem on a gap between consumption and production, but promised the government will add a total of 4,810 megawatts to its more than 22,000-megawatt total production by November. Shaker said that will be a "breakthrough" in the crisis. He said the government will end all power outages in the country in four years by building new power plants.

The blackouts in Cairo and other cities have increased amid an energy crunch linked to shrinking revenues and the government's inability to pay its debts to foreign oil companies. The crisis has caused public anger, especially with most Egyptians still reeling from an increase in fuel prices, a gradual increase in the price of electricity, a new property tax and a rise in cigarette prices.

The measures were part of government's attempts to decrease its budget deficit — which now stands at around 10 percent of Egypt's forecast gross domestic product for 2014-2015— and break free from a massive subsidies program that eats nearly a quarter of its budget.

Egypt's government has promised to introduce a minimum wage for public sector workers, increase pensions and make more food available in state-run outlets selling at discounted prices.

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Zimbabwe economy takes another dive

HARARE, Zimbabwe — It is 4 a.m. and people are already lining up outside Zimbabwe's main passport office — four hours ahead of opening time — in hopes of securing a passport that will allow them to escape their country's dearth of opportunities and search for work abroad.

Several million Zimbabweans left for South Africa and other countries during past economic turmoil. Now, a year after the re-election of longtime leader Robert Mugabe, the country is facing new financial hardships.

Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is estimated at 80 percent, pushing many people try to earn a living as street traders. An informal economy has mushroomed around the passport office, where young men charge $5 to hold a place in the line for those eager to return to bed for a few hours. By 5 a.m., the line stretches for blocks. Hustlers point potential customers to a makeshift studio where a generator powers a photocopying machine and instant photo service.

"Make sure you have copies of your birth certificate, national ID and two passport photos ready to avoid delays," they say.

Zimbabwe, a once-prosperous nation of 13 million people in southern Africa, has struggled since 90-year-old Mugabe defeated rival Morgan Tsvangirai in a 2013 vote marked by allegations of irregularities. Mugabe's victory ended an uneasy power-sharing deal with the opposition, but foreign investors have been deterred by concerns about corruption and government policies to force foreign-owned and white-owned businesses to cede 51 percent of their shares to black Zimbabweans. Hundreds of manufacturing companies have closed in the past year.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has acknowledged that the economy is struggling, cutting growth forecasts for 2014 by half to 3.1 percent. The World Bank forecasts 2 percent.

The fallout is putting pressure on the passport department, which is unable to meet demand even though it prints 3,000 passports a day.

"There is a high demand for passports in Zimbabwe as people are leaving to escape the economic crisis the country is facing," Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudebe, who heads the passport department, told a parliamentary committee in July.

Zimbabwe's exports are faltering. A massive debt means Zimbabwe cannot borrow enough money, even from allies such as China, to make ends meet. The United States has sanctions against Mugabe and his closest associates over human rights concerns. The government, which has blamed economic woes on Western sanctions, adopted the U.S. dollar as an official currency in 2009 to curb inflation that had soared to more than 1 billion percent.

Torn $1 and $2 notes are now the major currency on the streets. A growing scarcity of dollars has led some pro-government analysts and politicians to call for a return to the Zimbabwean currency.

Passports are only issued at the Harare office, so many people travel long distances.

Felix Zengeya, 30, came from Mutare city, 300 kilometers (190 miles) away, to try to replace his passport and return to South Africa, which has one of Africa's biggest economies. He had fled economic hardship in Zimbabwe in 2008, but returned when the economy improved. But now he has given up hope of getting a job in Zimbabwe's diamond mines.

He would leave his wife and 4-year-old daughter if he heads south again.

South Africa recently tightened immigration rules which could have frozen Zengeya and tens of thousands of other Zimbabweans living in that country under a 2009 special dispensation. But after pleas from Mugabe's government, South Africa has agreed to extend the special allowance for Zimbabwean immigrants to stay until 2017.

Yet, for Zengeya, his mind had been set even before the decision to relax immigration rules for Zimbabweans was made.

"I am going," he said. "Even without papers, I can find work."

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SeaWorld drops appeal of OSHA violation

ORLANDO, Fla. — SeaWorld Entertainment has dropped an appeal of citations it received after the drowning of a trainer who was pulled under by a killer whale.

The marine park company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week that it wasn't going to pursue the appeal of a federal appeals court's decision to uphold the citations.

Last April, the federal appeals court in Washington said SeaWorld's challenge to the finding was unpersuasive, and that the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission was correct when it found that the SeaWorld park in Orlando had violated a federal workplace safety law.

SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed in 2010 when killer whale Tilikum grabbed her and pulled her into a pool.

Tilikum became the focus of the 2013 documentary film "Blackfish."

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US: Slow growth seen in Conn., Maine economies

HARTFORD, Conn. — New federal statistics show economic growth in New England has been slowest in Connecticut and Maine since the end of the recession in 2009.

The Commerce Department released statistics of quarterly gross domestic product — the measure of all goods and services — between 2005 and 2013. From the second quarter of 2009 until the end of 2013, the economies of Connecticut and Maine grew by 3 percent.

In contrast, growth in the region's largest economy, Massachusetts, was 11 percent. Growth was greatest in Vermont, at 12 percent, though the state's $27.9 billion economy last year was the smallest in New England.

Economic growth was 9 percent in New Hampshire. Even in Rhode Island, where high unemployment persists, the economy grew by 6 percent.

The U.S. economy expanded by 10 percent.

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B&N, Samsung unveil reading-focused Nook tablet

NEW YORK — Barnes & Noble and Samsung unveiled a new reading-focused tablet that will replace the bookseller's own Nook tablets.

The 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook will sell for $179, the same entry price of the non-branded Samsung Galaxy Tab 4.

The move had been expected since Barnes & Noble said in June it would team up with Samsung to release co-branded Nook tablets in August.

For the first time, the Nook will have a camera. The 1.3 megapixel camera on the front is on par with what's on other tablets, but the 3.0 megapixel rear one isn't as sharp.

The Nook offers access to both the Nook app store and Google's Play store for Android apps — the latter unavailable in previous Nook tablets.

The New York company spent years investing in its Nook e-book reader and e-book library, but they struggled to be profitable. And in December the chain said it was evaluating the future of its tablets. Still it offered a new non-tablet e-book reader during the holiday season.

In an interview, Barnes & Noble CEO Mike Huseby said Nook tablets hadn't done well in the past because they weren't full-featured. This one, he said, has a camera and other features expected in Android tablets, while offering additional ones targeted at readers.

While it's possible to install a Nook app on most Android tablets, the Nook tablet goes further in offering a home screen with quick links to favorites and recently read books. You can pause reading to check email or Facebook, then hit a book icon on the corner of the home screen to instantly resume your book.

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets also emphasize reading, alongside shopping, movies and other Amazon services. They have had more success than Nooks.

Huseby said Barnes & Noble has the advantage of having more than 600 stores where customers can come in to check out the products before buying and return for tutorials and other help.

"Amazon doesn't have them," he said. "You can call them on the phone or chat online, but they don't have a store in which you can get a human contact and expert bookseller."

B&N has been trying to turn itself around as competition from discount stores and online retailers toughens, and as consumers shift away from traditional books to digital formats.

Barnes & Noble says it will continue to make and sell its $99 Nook GlowLight e-readers.

In July, Barnes & Noble said it would separate the Nook and retail businesses. The retail business includes bookstores and the BN.com website and has been outperforming the Nook unit. Nook Media, whose investors include software company Microsoft Corp. and educational book publisher Pearson Inc., houses the digital and college businesses of Barnes & Noble.

The company expects the separation to be complete by April 2015.

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Target cuts outlook as breach fallout lingers

NEW YORK — Target Corp. slashed its annual profit outlook for the second time in three months as the retailer continues to reel from costs related to a massive data breach, a botched expansion in Canada and sluggish sales in the U.S.

The nation's third-largest retailer also said Wednesday that its second-quarter earnings dropped 61.7 percent. Excluding expenses related to the data breach, the results were a penny short of Target's reduced estimate issued earlier this month.

The reduced forecast comes three weeks after Target named PepsiCo executive Brian Cornell as its new CEO as the retailer fights to redefine itself to American shoppers. The latest results highlight the challenges that Cornell, who officially started Aug. 12, faces on all fronts.

He must wrestle not only with problems specific to Target, such as restoring the discounter's magic as a cheap chic fashion purveyor. But he also must address broader challenges facing the economy and the retail industry in general.

While most of Target's low- to middle-income shoppers have moved beyond the data breach, they remain cautious about spending in a tough environment. In fact, Target, which ramped up promotions in the first quarter and scaled back the discounting tempo in the second quarter, said it still had to cut prices more than originally expected in the latest period.

That environment has also tripped up rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which lowered its annual profit forecast last week amid sluggish sales.

Target and other retailers also face a shifting landscape where shoppers, looking for convenience, are moving away from physical stores and researching and buying on their PCs and mobile devices. That has contributed to traffic declines at Target and other retailers.

In his first earnings conference call as Target's new leader, Cornell told investors Wednesday his top priorities are turning around the U.S. business and Canadian operations as well as pushing Target to move faster in innovations in digital shopping.

He said he just returned from a trip to Canada and said that he plans to spend time listening to employees. But he emphasized there's no time to waste.

"I want to be a good student of the business," he said. "But clearly, we have a sense of urgency here and a sense of pace."

Cornell is the first outsider to take the helm at Target. He replaces Mulligan, who was named interim CEO when Gregg Steinhafel resigned in early May in the wake of the data breach that compromised the credit card and personal information of millions of customers and exposed big security flaws.

Mulligan told reporters during a call that Target plans to return to a more normal pace of discounting and focus on attracting shoppers by offering more exciting products.

To that end, Target is revamping its beauty and baby departments and is also planning to increase its offerings of trendier fashions.

There were some encouraging signs. Customer traffic was down 1.3 percent in the first quarter, not as bad as the 2.3 percent drop in the first quarter. Right after the breach was disclosed last December, traffic dropped 5 percent

Revenue at stores open at least a year up moved into the positive territory for six weeks in a row, a period that includes a bulk of the back-to-school shopping season. The figure is considered a key measurement of a retailer's operating performance.

Target also faces the lingering effects of the breach. The company has responded by overhauling security and technology.

The company incurred breach-related expenses of $148 million, partially offset by the recognition of a $38 million insurance receivable in the quarter.

As for Canada, the company is overhauling its business under new management. In fact, 30,000 of the 70,000 items stocked in a typical Canadian store will be new by the holiday season.

Such factors weighed on the second-quarter results.

Target said it earned $234 million, or 37 cents per share, in the quarter ended Aug. 2, compared with earnings of $611 million, or 95 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 1.7 percent to $17.4 billion, slightly above the $17.38 billion estimate from FactSet. Revenue at stores open at least a year was unchanged from a year ago.

Excluding expenses related to the data breach, the company earned 78 cents per share. Analysts expected 79 cents per share, according to FactSet.

The company said it now expects full-year adjusted earnings to be in the range of $3.10 to $3.30 per share, compared with prior guidance of $3.60 to $3.90. Analysts had expected $3.50 per share.

Target's shares rose 1 percent, or 67 cents, to $59.92 Wednesday.

The shares, excluding Wednesday's performance, have lost nearly 13 percent of their value over the past year.

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

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