Dow hits low for the year
NEW YORK, June 26 (UPI) -- The Dow Jones industrial average plunged to a new closing low for the year Thursday, while other U.S. stock indexes also fell hard.
The DJIA's previous low for the year was on March 16 at 11,740.15. By the close Thursday, the average had fallen 358.41 points, or 3.03 percent, to 11,453.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 38.82 points, or 2.94 percent, to 1,283.15, while the Nasdaq composite index dropped 79.89 points, or 3.33 percent, to 2,321.37.
Metals and mining was up 7.05 percent as a group with tires falling 10.39 percent, footwear dropping 8.47 percent and mortgage finance dropping 6.9 percent.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 479 stocks advanced and 2,692 declined on volume of 1.535 billion shares traded.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury note gained 15/32 to yield 4.0643 percent.
The euro traded at $1.5757 from Wednesday's $1.5764, while the dollar traded at 106.75 yen from Wednesday's 106.69 yen.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei index lost 7.60 points to 13,822.32, off 0.05 percent.
In London, the FTSE 100 index fell 147.90 points to 5,518.20, off 2.61 percent.
Door flung open on Internet domain names
PARIS, June 26 (UPI) -- Internet regulators in Paris who oversee online addresses accepted a plan that would open the door to untold numbers of new URLs, the regulators said.
The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers accepted a plan to free up constraints on the end of URLs that have become familiar and routine to Internet users.
Currently restricted to domains that end with ".com," ".org," ".net" and 18 other approved address tags, the plan submitted by stakeholders would end those restrictions.
If the final version of the plan is approved in a formal vote by ICANN board, Internet users could chose their own endings, ICANN said in a statement.
New York City could switch to ".nyc" addresses, while companies could use brand names, the statement said.
"This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia," Peter Thrush, ICANN's chairman said.
"The potential here is huge," President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Twomey said.
"It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet."
Copy desks move overseas at some papers
COLLEGE STATION, Texas, June 26 (UPI) -- California's fifth-largest newspaper is turning to a company in India for copy editing services on a trial basis, sources said.
The Orange County Register's decision to contract with Mindworks Global Media on a one-month trial basis drew sympathy and criticism from a university administrator Thursday.
With declining advertising revenues and readership, "I sympathize with publishers," Randall Sumpter, director of Texas A&M's Journalism Studies Program said in a statement.
But, Sumpter explained newspaper editing requires technical skills and knowledge of the newspaper's community. "That ability comes from living in the same city and having the same problems the readers have," Sumpter said.
The Register is one of several U.S. newspapers, including The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, that have moved some of their editing and layout work overseas, the statement said.
"Let's hope outsourcing news room operations to another continent never progresses beyond the experimental stage," Sumpter said.
Montreal to get Waldorf=Astoria clone
MONTREAL, June 26 (UPI) -- Monit Investments of Montreal, Quebec, announced a $200 million plan to build a 32-story Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in the Canadian city.
The building will have twin art deco towers in line with its New York namesake's, complete with the equal sign instead of a hyphen in the name that came about in 1897 when the Waldorf and Astoria hotels on Park Avenue, were joined by tunnels, The Gazette newspaper in Montreal reported.
The site is now a parking lot, created when fire destroyed three 19th-century row houses in 2003, the newspaper said.
The facility will have 250 hotel rooms, 76 residences, several restaurants, bars, a spa and fitness center, Monit officials said.
Waldorf=Astoria spokesman David Semanoff told the newspaper by telephone from New York the company will manage the Montreal property to ensure the brand's standards are maintained.
The project is expected to be completed in 2011, the report said.
