Oil companies are the biggest money makers on this year’s Global 500, including BP, Microsoft and Wal-Mart.

Australia’s top companies are BHP Billiton, Westfarmers, Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australian Bank, Westpac Banking, ANZ Bank and Telstra.

China’s leading companies are Sinopec, State Grid and China National Petroleum.

Yet there are huge companies, with revenue greater than, or equal to the commonly known brand name companies.

Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, founded in 1885, has 130,00 employees and a turn-over of $128b. It is the leading manufacturer of auto interiors for cars and light-trucks. The company designs components and systems that manager car systems, including door and overhead and door controls for companies like Toyota, GM, Volkswagen and Ford.

Ingram Micro

It is also the world’s leading battery manufacturer. In 2009 they received the largest grant awarded by the United States Department of Energy, $299.2m, for building batteries for electric vehicles.

Ingram Micro turns over $30b and has 13,750 employees. It was formed in 1979. It is the world’s largest wholesale technology distributor, including desktops, notebooks, PC’s, storage devices, printers and software. Its 1,300 vendors include IBM, Nokia, Microsoft and Intel. It delivers product to over 180,000 resellers around the world. Acting only as a middle-man it has no interest in public knowledge about the company.

Mainly teachers know of TIAA-CREF, the number one retirement system for employees in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. It is one of the largest financial services companies in the U.S., servicing around 3.7m people. The company was formed in 1918, had 7,000 employees and turns over $26b.

TJX, formed in 1956 has over 150,000 employees and turns over $20b through its numerous stores, in the United States, Canada and Europe. The company’s leading discount retailers include such names as Marshalls, J.J. Maxx, HomeGoods and A.J. Wright.

Aramark Corp

Aramark Corp was founded in 1936. Today it has 250,000 employees and turns over $12b. The company provides food to various institutions such as businesses, courts, educational institutions, armed forces and health care providers. The Correctional Services department provides 1m meals a day to over 600 correctional facilities.

KFC

Yum! Brands Inc was founded in 1997, employs 49,000 people and has an $11b turnover.

It is the world’s largest restaurant chain by brand, operating over 37,000 restaurants, in over 110 countries. Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC and Long John Silver all operate under the Yum! Brand banner.

The Coast Guard says it saw a tow boat, Pere Ana C, hit the wellhead. No injuries were reported.

The Coast Guard does not know who owns the small well, or how much oil has leaked, though a sheen has been spotted in the lake.

A helicopter has been dispatched to survey the area, which is accessible only by boat.

On the BP front, BP is reporting a $17b loss for the past quarter and looking for management changes.

Under current law, the economic liability for a company responsible for a spill is $75 million, or if the company has not made a profit in the past four quarters, it would be liable for $150m, or twice the current cap.

BP however, says it has set aside several billion into an escrow account, to assist the spill victims. Analysts now estimate the cost of clean-up operations in the Gulf, to top $30b. The relief well is nearly complete for the final stage, a “bottom kill” in which mud and cement are pumped in to the leaking well.

BP CEO, Tony Hayward, has announced he will step down from his post in October. However, he feels he has been ‘demonized’ in the U.S., according to U.K.’s Guardian. He may be “too busy” to attend the hearings on the Gulf Oil spill.

“I believe this tragedy will leave BP a different company. I believe for it to move on in the United States it needs new leadership and it is for that reason I have stood down as the CEO,” Hayward said.

Hayward will walk away with a payout of $1.6m, plus $11m pension fund, though there has been talk of a key job at TNK-BP, in Russia, for Hayward. The Russian venture accounts for a quarter of the company’s production.

An American, BP executive Robert Dudley, looks set to replace Hayward. After a dispute with the Russian shareholders, Dudley was forced to flee Russia in 2008.

Adams was a California based photographer who transformed images of mountains, churches, lakes, and trees into sweeping black and whites that overwhelm with power.

His vast collection of work will now be supplemented by the discovery of 65 glass plates believed to have been taken between 1919 and 1930. Purchased for $45 a decade ago at a garage sale by Rick Norsigian, these 65 photographs are being considered the “missing link” in Adams’ career and were once thought lost in a fire.

Art appraiser David W. Streets said he conservatively estimated the negatives’ value at $200 million, based on current sales of Adams’ prints and the potential for selling reproductions.

The glass negatives were assessed by a team of experts, over 6-month examination. They were believed to have been destroyed in a fire in 1937, at his Yosemite National Park studio.

Norsigian, a construction worker and painter said he purchased the negatives 10 years ago, from a man who said he had purchased them from a salvage warehouse in Los Angeles. Norsigian said he tried to contact the man, after learning of the true value, but to no avail.

In the beginning he never suspected they were Adams’ work. Finally he placed the 8½-by-6½-inch negatives in a bank vault and three years ago and sought to have them verified.

Adams died in 1986, at 82, leaving behind a rich heritage of black and white photographs, after developing the legendary Zone System, which determined proper exposure and adjustment of the contrast in the final print. His photographs were recognized for their clarity and exceptional depth.

A review from the Washington Post said, “His photographs are like portraits of the giant peaks, which seem to be inhabited by mythical gods.”

Ansel Adams' Photographs

His timeless and visually stunning photos, from a 60 year long career, have been reproduced on calendars, posters and in numerous books.

His lasting legacy is that he helped elevate photography to an art, comparable with painting and music, equally capable of expressing emotion and beauty.

They include the Basket Tree, Giant Sequoias of California, Circus Tree, Chapel-Oak. Tule Tree and Baobab Trees – including one with a toilet built inside it.

If you have any other weird and wonderful tree shapes email them to us at admin@youmesupport.org

Paloma Werner said Wednesday the whale breached just feet (meters) from their boat in Cape Town’s waters, before landing in the middle of their yacht, snapping the mast in two. A local newspaper showed a photo, captured by a passenger on a nearby boat, of a massive black whale towering over the yacht. Werner says neither she nor her companion were hurt.

Werner saw the whale swimming around minutes after the collision. “Luckily, we weren’t taking on water so we started the engine and headed for shore. I saw the whale reappear further away.

The couple had been watching the whale for over an hour. It may have simply not have known the sailboat, which had its motor off, was there. The seas around Cape Town are teeming with whales and great white sharks at this time of the year.

Whales colliding with boats is not an uncommon occurrence.

Recently a 61-year-old woman from Bremerton, Washington, was injured when a whale surfaced next to a whale-watching boat. The woman was on a whale-watching expedition aboard the Hokulani, operated by the Center for Whale Studies, when a male humpback whale surfaced next to the starboard side about 1:25 p.m.

Its pectoral fin reportedly slammed into the boat, causing the woman to fall, police said. The boat’s railing on the starboard side was smashed and thin pieces of tissue, believed to be from the whale, were found on the boat’s hull. The woman was taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center with minor injuries, police said.

In 2007 Lindsay Wright was sailing his brand-new 10-metre (30-ft) trimaran, Loose Goose, about 80 nautical miles off the west coast of the North Island, of New Zealand, when he was hit by a whale.

Wright said he had been sleeping when he was awoken by a loud noise and rushed up on deck to find himself staring at a whale’s head about a foot away.

He said the whale, a large male in a pod of about six humpbacks, had hit his yacht with its tail, opening a large hole in one of the boat’s three hulls.

“When I first saw him I thought he had come back for the coup de grace,” Wright said, then later felt it was just one of those unfortunate accidents.

Wright activated a distress beacon as his yacht took on water and lost electrical power. He was winched to safety aboard a rescue helicopter about five hours later.

“People with different levels of education have similar brain pathology, but those with more education are better able to compensate for the effects of dementia,” the Cambridge University study said.

A team of British and Finnish researchers studied the brains of 872 people, donated for medical research over the past 20 years and examined questionnaires each donor had completed on their education.

Dr Hannah Keage, the study’s co-author, said: “Our study shows education in early life appears to enable some people to cope with a lot of changes in their brain before showing dementia symptoms.”

Keage also claims that those who are more educated have more psychological strength, a condition necessary to combat dementia.

Study leader Professor Brayne added: “Education is known to be good for population health and equity. This study provides strong support for investment in early life factors which should have an impact on society and the whole lifespan.”

Professor Brayne believes this study is hugely relevant to policy decisions about the importance of resource allocation between health and education.”

The University of Gothenurg also conducted studies in ‘cognitive reserve’, or mental padding, arriving at a similar conclusion.

Dr Rolstad a Swedish psychologist said “Highly educated patients with mild cognitive impairment who went on to develop dementia had more signs of disease in their spinal fluid than those with intermediate and low levels of education.” Despite having more disease in the brain, the highly educated patients showed the same symptoms of the disease as their less well educated counterparts.

“Patients with higher levels of education tolerate more disease in the brain,” said Dr Rolstad, “But also sustain less nerve damage during the early stages of the disease.”

It would appear there are two ways in which people with a large cognitive reserve compensate for the effects of ageing or brain damage. Either they recruit alternative networks or they increase the efficiency of their existing ones.

In 2006 Marcus Richards, an epidemiologist at University College London, claimed social class, occupation and education at age 26 help shape cognitive ability at age 53. Beyond 65, the risk of dementia doubles every five years and nearly 25 per cent of people over the age of 85 suffer from dementia.

In 2006 epidemiologists claimed that people with high literacy and IQ cope better with the progress of Alzheimer’s disease. They also recover from stroke, head injury, intoxication and poisoning with neurotoxins more rapidly than the average person.

A teenage man recently turned himself in to police officers, after stealing an ambulance that was out on an emergency call in Atlanta, Georgia.

Investigators said 18-year old Frank Howard jumped in the driver’s seat and stole the vehicle while its crew was responding to a call in southeast Atlanta.

The paramedics had left the ambulance unlocked and the motor running, while attending to a call at an apartment complex.

The teenage allegedly stole the ambulance, dressed up in ambulance gear and drove the ambulance 2 blocks, before crashing it and running it off the road. The ambulance was found soon afterwards in a ditch on the side of the road.

Howard was being held in the Fulton County Jail and will be charged with auto theft.

In May 2010 two drunks jumped into an ambulance that was standing outside Upstate University Hospital.

21 year old driver, Brandon Ray, then drove the ambulance at a high rate of speed along Walnut Avenue, near Syracuse University, before police were able to stop him.

In April 2009 a Houston ambulance was stolen while paramedics were on duty. The driver hit a number of vehicles, including a police car and another ambulance, which had been blocking traffic for a police vice bust at a club.

Stolen and Wrecked Ambulance

In March 2009 the driver of a stolen ambulance caused a six-car crash in Everston, Chicago, when it ran a red light. Eight people were injured. The ambulance had been stolen from outside a nursing home.

In 1996 an ambulance was taken by vandals, from outside a house in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and driven into a car-park wall. The joyriders also vandalized life-saving equipment.

The ambulance had been about to pick up a pregnant woman and rush her to hospital. She was forced to wait a further 20 minutes before a replacement ambulance arrived.

A fully equipped ambulance costs around $175,000. The loss of an ambulance in rural areas in particular, puts the public at significant risk, often taking months to have a replacement back in service.

Funding of ambulances is also another deep concern for the community.

However, for more than 40 years, scientists have known that the large-scale use of antibiotics in healthy farm animals might be creating antibiotic-resistant bugs.

Dr. John Clifford, Deputy Administrator for Veterinary Services for the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has finally admitted that the use of antibiotics in farm animal feed is contributing to the growing problem of deadly antibiotic resistance in America.

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Principle Deputy Commissioner of the FDA, said in his testimony at a House Energy and Commerce subcomitte, that the overall weight of evidence supports the conclusion that using antibiotics for production purposes in livestock farming (as growth promoters and to prevent, rather than treat illness) is not in the interest of protecting and promoting public health.

Many experts believe the over use of antibiotics in food animals, are the  reasons we are seeing more antibiotic resistant pathogens. Now U.S. lawmakers are looking to curb the use of antibiotics in raising livestock, a move that puts them at odds with agribusiness interests.

The new bill would prohibit seven types of antibiotics from being used indiscriminately in animal feed. The recently released FDA draft guidance also states that antibiotics should only be used when the animals are under the care of a veterinarian.

While the legislation is unlikely to become law this year, the bill already has 113 cosponsors and supporters have vowed to continue the fight.

During the FDA hearing, Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan cited salmonella studies which show that a steady diet of antibiotics yields antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can spread from livestock to humans.

The food industry’s counterargument is that tough restrictions could drive up farmers’ costs without improving public health.

“Before we go down a path that will have a devastating economic impact on our agriculture industry, we must assure science drives this debate,” said Rep. John Shimkus.”So far there’s nothing that links use in animals to a buildup of resistance in humans.”

NPPC president Sam Carney, an Iowa pork producer from Adair said “FDA didn’t present any science on which to base this call, yet it could have a tremendous negative impact on animal health and ultimately, the safety of food.”

Laura says she is ready for a two year solo sail around the world. She is determined to complete the trip before she turns 17 on Sept 2012.

Council spokesman said the request has been made from fear for the girl’s social and emotional development. “A 14-year-old child cannot appreciate the risks of a solo trip of this nature.”

Laura’s plans to set sail last September were thwarted by the intervention of child care officials and a subsequent court ruling placing her under their supervision until July 1, when the school year ended.

In December, she breached the court order, running away to the Dutch Caribbean island territory of St Martin. Police escorted her back home and the supervision was extended to August 1^st.

Her lawyer Peter de Lange said “We were able to show the court today that she has met all the court’s conditions, and an independent sail expert has approved her sailing plan.”

“Laura has obtained a first aid diploma, registered with a distance education facility to continue her schooling at sea, gained solo sailing experience and learnt sleep management techniques,” said De Lange.

In May, after a grueling two hundred ten days at sea and a twenty three thousand nautical mile journey, Australia’s Jessica Watson, became the youngest person to sail around the world non-stop, solo and unassisted. Jessica completed the challenge just three days before her 17^th birthday.

In June, a U.S. teenager was plucked from her stricken yacht in the Indian Ocean, as she attempted the solo sail.

Guinness World Record no longer has the ‘youngest or oldest solo sail around the world category. Australian Jesse Martin won the record in 1999, at 18.

Thirty metre high flames and the following crude oil spill closed China’s largest port, Dalian, once voted the most livable city in China. Fifteen hours elapsed before fire fighters were able to put the flames out.

One firefighter was dragged ashore by his colleagues, after drowning in the black goo. The body was completely coated in thick slippery oil. He had been attempting to fix an underwater pump, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks.

Forty oil skimming boats and around 800 fishing boats were deployed in the area to assist with the clean up. More than 15 kilometres of oil barriers have been set up.

“Our priority is to collect the spilled oil to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” Dalian’s vice mayor, Dai Yulin.

The oil has spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers). State media says no more oil is leaking into the ocean. It has been estimated around 400,000 gallons of oil has spilled, which is minor compared to the 84 – 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the China oil spill is dwarfed by the BP spill, the greater danger in the China spill is that officials, oil company workers and volunteers have no protective clothing, as they attempt to clean the blackened beaches.

“We don’t have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks and straw mats,” an official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, in apparent exasperation.

The cause of the explosion to the pipe line, owned by China National Petroleum Corp., is still not clear. CNPC is Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

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