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Methodist Hospitals of Memphis ranks as the 27th best hospital in the nation for orthopedic care, according to U.S. News and World Report magazine’s Best Hospitals for 2010-11.

“Methodist is very honored to be included in this prestigious listing,” said Gary S. Shorb, president and CEO of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Inc., in a statement. “We take pride in our orthopedic services and the physicians who partner with us daily to provide outstanding patient care.”

The list includes rankings of 152 medical centers nationwide in 16 specialties, including cancer, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose, and throat, gastroenterology, geriatrics, gynecology, heart and heart surgery, kidney disorders, neurology and neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, psychiatry, pulmonology, rehabilitation, rheumatology and urology.

Full data is available online at www.usnews.com/besthospitals

"When the stakes are high, you want the best care you can get for yourself or someone close to you," said Health Rankings Editor Avery Comarow in a statement payday loans for self employed.

The orthopedics rankings were driven by hard data such as death rates, procedure volume and balance of nurses and patients. In four specialties - - ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and rheumatology - - hospitals were ranked on reputation alone.

To be considered in any of the 12 data-driven specialties, a hospital first had to meet at least one of four criteria: It had to be a teaching hospital; be affiliated with a medical school; have at least 200 beds; or have 100 or more beds and the availability of four or more types of medical technology considered important in a high-quality medical facility, such as a PET/CT scanner and precision radiation therapies.

The hospitals then had to meet a volume requirement, individually calculated for each specialty.

Methodist Hospitals of Memphis includes Methodist University Hospital, Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital, Methodist North, Methodist South and Le Bonheur Children's Hospital.

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Silicon Valley's July earnings season is expected to kick off after market close Tuesday with a big quarter from chipmaking giant Intel Corp.

The Santa Clara-based company (NASDAQ:INTC) is projected by analysts to post a 43-cent-a-share profit on a 27.7 percent growth in revenue to $10.25 billion from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters.

Analysts will be on the lookout for evidence that the European economic turmoil is having an effect on chip demand payday loans for bad credit. But global numbers last week from the Semiconductor Industry Association showed a sequential increase of 4.5 percent from April when sales were $23.6 billion and a year-over-year increase of 47.6 percent from May 2009 when sales were $16.7 billion.

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Denver International Airport had its second-busiest May on record, with 4.37 million passengers passing through.

The passenger count is up 4.3 percent from May 2009, but down from 4.45 million passengers in May 2008.

For the first five months of this year, DIA counted 20.37 million passengers, an increase of 3.8 percent from the same period of last year fast cash advance loan.

May 2010 also had a 3.8 percent increase in flight operations, to 52,492 from a year earlier, and cargo increased by 13.8 percent, to 45.84 million tons during the same period.

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Philadelphia International Airport now offers free, wireless Internet access to all travelers everyday.

The airport had been offering free Wi-Fi to college students and weekend travelers since 2007, through a partnership with AT&T.

Prior to the program’s roll out, charges for wireless Internet access at the airport ranged from $7.95 for a 24-hour connection to $39.95 for monthly, unlimited use pay day loans.

Last year, US Airways Group Inc. also began offering free Wi-Fi in Philadelphia to its US Airways club members. The US Airways Club location was one of 10 where the complimentary service was introduced by US Airways.

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Three Arizona entities secured $15.7 million in stimulus funding to expand the reach of broadband Internet services into rural communities.

The money was from about $795 million in grants announced today through programs at the U.S. Department of Commerce and Department of Agriculture.

The Arizona Office of Economic Recovery was given a $1.6 million grant to be used to expand computer centers at 28 state and tribal library locations, as well as provide virtual workstations at more than 200 other sites. The grant comes with $706,000 in matching funds.

The San Carlos Apache Telecommunications Utility Inc., located in San Carlos, will get a $10 guaranteed approval cash advance loans.5 million grant to provide fiber-optic cable to residents and businesses on the reservation. It will affect 6,000 people, 20 businesses and 50 community institutions.

Hopi Telecommunications Inc. will receive a $3.6 million grant to build connections to Jeddito, as well as provide Internet connections to people in that area.

The grants are part of about $7.2 billion being rolled out in the American Recover and Reinvestment Act. With these awards, about $2.7 billion has been allocated.

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The House voted Thursday to reverse a 21% cut in government fees paid to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

The vote followed Senate passage last Friday of the same legislation, which retroactively rescinds the June 1 cut for six months and adds a 2.2% increase in doctors’ rates.

The House vote passed 417-1. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., voted against the measure.

The measure will cost the government $6.4 billion over 10 years. It will now be sent to President Obama to be signed into law.

The passage of the legislation brings an end to a two-month battle that has left many doctors uncertain about their ability to continue accepting Medicare patients. All told, 43 million people, mostly seniors, receive Medicare benefits.

The root of the dispute is a 1997 law that requires that doctors’ Medicare rates be adjusted each year based on a formula tied to the health of the economy. The law says rates should be cut every year to keep Medicare in the black.

Congress has now blocked such cuts 10 times in the last eight years, including four times since January.

The Medicare reimbursements were slashed starting June 1. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services temporarily delayed processing claims in hopes that Congress would reverse the cuts.

The Medicare agency was hopeful that its freeze would buy it enough time so it wouldn’t have to send doctors reduced checks.

But the Medicare agency, saying it couldn’t wait any longer for congressional action, had started processing all claims from June 1 through now — and those included the 21% rate cuts payday loan online.

Lawmakers had been stuck in a stalemate driven by concerns about federal spending.

Obama said in a statement that he was "pleased" the measure passed because a cut would have forced some doctors to stop accepting Medicare.

"We should also agree, as I’ve said in the past, that kicking these cuts down the road just isn’t an adequate solution to the problem," Obama added, calling the system of temporary fixes "untenable."

The American Medical Association has railed against the Medicare reimbursement formula, arguing that without a total overhaul, lingering uncertainty will remain for both physicians and consumers. Lawmakers counter that retooling the current setup would cost $210 billion over 10 years.

"The six-month Medicare patch Congress passed today is a very temporary reprieve for seniors and baby boomers who rely on the promise of Medicare," the AMA said in a statement immediately following the House vote. "Delaying the problem is not a solution."

– CNN’s Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report. 

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A four-year, $90 million redesign and construction project recently was completed at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in south St. Louis County with the opening of the hospital’s new heart and vascular institute.

This final part of the project groups three radiology suites, three cardiac catheterization labs, two electrophysiological labs and an endovascular lab together in one area of the hospital. Other parts completed earlier included the hospital’s heart and surgical pavilion, which opened in October 2008.

McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., based in Ladue, was the general contractor on the entire project. The architect was Cannon Design, based in St. Louis.

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The U.S. Supreme Court lifted a ban on Monsanto Co.’s genetically engineered alfalfa ordered three years ago amid concern over contamination of conventional alfalfa fields.

The court’s 7-1 vote reverses a federal appeals court ruling. It opens the door for the Department of Agriculture to approve planting of the crop on an interim basis while the agency completes a more thorough environmental analysis.

The opinion represents the court’s first foray into the debate over genetically engineered crops and could help shape how new biotech crops are deregulated and how fast they are brought to market.

"This Supreme Court ruling is important for every American farmer, not just alfalfa growers," David F. Snively, Monsanto senior vice president and general counsel said in a statement. "All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA, and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation."

A federal district court in California approved an injunction banning future plantings of the crop in 2007 after conventional alfalfa growers and environmental groups filed a lawsuit claiming the USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service erred by deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa without preparing an environmental impact study.

The growers worried that conventional and organic alfalfa crops could be contaminated by pollen from the genetically modified plants if wind or insects carry pollen between fields. They also expressed concern that biotech crops would contribute to the development of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.

The ban did allow farmers who had already purchased the Monsanto-engineered seeds to plant. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

Before the ban took effect, Roundup Ready alfalfa was planted on about 220,000 acres — less than 1 percent of the 23 million acres of alfalfa grown nationwide.

Alfalfa is the fourth-most widely grown U.S. crop behind corn, soybeans and wheat. It is mainly used for livestock feed, and much of what is grown is exported.

Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, developed Roundup Ready alfalfa. Monsanto licenses the technology to Forage Genetics.

In its Supreme Court appeal, Monsanto didn’t challenge the district court’s decision that USDA was required to conduct an environmental impact statement. The company sought only to reverse the sweeping ban that prohibited future plantings of Roundup Ready alfalfa.

On Monday, the company said Roundup Ready alfalfa seed is ready to deliver and it hopes to have USDA approval to sell to growers this fall.

But the Center for Food Safety, a group that opposes genetically modified crops and plaintiff in the original lawsuit, suggested that any effort to plantings on an interim basis would be challenged.

"The bottom line is that the Supreme Court set aside the injunction because the vacating of the commercialization decision already gave us all the relief we needed," George Kimbrell, senior staff attorney for group, said in a statement. "And at such time, farmers and consumers still have the right to challenge the adequacy of that process."

Justice Stephen Breyer didn’t take part in the decision. His brother is the district court judge who ordered the 2007 ban.

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A key index of consumer prices fell in May, but it was up 2% over the past 12 months, the government said Thursday.

The Consumer Price Index, the Labor Department’s key measure of inflation, fell by 0.2% in May on a monthly basis. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected a 0.1% drop.

The government report attributed most of the month-to-month decline to the energy index, which fell by 2.9% in May. The gasoline index fell by 5.2% in May, and was down 27% over the year.

"Up to this point, the U.S. economy has been the beneficiary of an ‘inflation-less’ recovery," said Jim Baird, partner and chief investment strategist for Plante Moran Financial Advisors, in a research note.

"While [some] point to the risk of inflation down the road," he added, "there is still sufficient slack in the economy to keep price levels from moving higher."

Core CPI and inflation: The closely watched core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, ticked up by 0.1% in May after being unchanged in April. That matched economists’ expectations.

It was only the second monthly increase in core CPI so far this year. The rate is down by 0.9% over the previous 12 months.

"The core inflation rate remains uncomfortably low," Baird said. "The economy may be expanding, but at a pace that isn’t inspiring."

The core rate is a gauge of inflation. Experts say concerns are sparked only when core CPI rises consistently by 0.2% or more each month.

"Muted inflation, and the risk of deflation, seems likely to provide the Fed continued incentive to maintain its accommodative stance," Baird said. 

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U.S. stocks were set to slide Friday, after a downbeat May retail sales report was released before the bell.

Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures were all lower.

Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance.

U.S. stocks closed with a pop Thursday as euro-zone concerns eased. The Dow (INDU), the S&P 500 (SPX) and the Nasdaq (COMP) all added about 3%.

Earlier in the session, stock futures had been higher after "a follow-through in global markets, following yesterday’s U.S. jump," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

Investors will also keep a close eye on the euro and on commodities, he added.

Economy: Before the market opened, the Commerce Department released a disappointing retail sales for May. Sales fell by 1.2% last month, but economists expected them to have risen 0.3%.

Sales excluding autos, which add volatility, fell by 1.1%. They were expected to have risen 0.1%.

At 10 a.m. ET is the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, expected to have risen to 74.8 in June from 73.6 in late May.

The April reading on business inventories from the government is due out after the start of trading. Inventories likely increased 0.5% after gaining 0.4% last month.

Companies: Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) said late Thursday it has set aside $100 million for a potential fraud settlement, the company said Thursday, as it nears a resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission of a mysterious case that has plagued the company for more than five years bad credit payday loans.

Dell shares eased 1.7% in premarket trading.

A report in the Wall Street Journal said BP (BP) is considering suspending or cutting its second-quarter dividend amid political pressure over the Gulf oil spill.

Chief executive Tony Hayward told the Journal that BP is "considering all options on the dividend," which is slated to be announced July 27.

BP shares were up 4.8% in premarket trading.

World markets: European markets were mixed in afternoon trading. France’s CAC 40 and Britain’s FTSE 100 posted slight gains, while the DAX in Germany was down by 0.7%.

Stocks in Asia mostly gained. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index rose 1.7% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong finished the session up 1.2%.

Dollar and commodities: The dollar was up 0.2% on the euro. The greenback rose 1% on the British pound, and it was flat against the Japanese yen.

U.S. light crude oil for July delivery fell $1.58 to $73.90 a barrel.

COMEX gold’s August contract fell $7.40 to $1,229.40 per ounce.

Bonds: Treasury prices were higher, pushing the benchmark 10-year note’s yield down to 3.26%. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. 

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