A month ago we highlighted the somewhat stunning reality of the real economy via the EIA's detailed energy supply and demand data. The key takeaway was? that we hoped this did not represent the true state of the economy since the data was so dismal. Fast forward to today and the DOE just released a much higher than expected build in crude inventories that took the stuffed-channel of oil products to all-time highs. The 395.3 million barrels is higher than the previous record in July 1990. There appears to be a number of factors at play - none of which are positive. There is a surge in supply due to the incessant harvesting of shale oil (which could have its own problems as we noted here). Second, we suspect there is a degree of 'channel-stuffing' occurring - if we pump it, they will buy - as producers and transporters are desperate to keep active and show incremental business (despite fading railcar loadings). But perhaps most important, as EIA data has shown, there has been a collapse in end demand for crude products not seen since the 1990s. Today's surge in inventories appears to confirm demand remains subdued at best.
NIH awards $40 million in grants to reduce stroke disparities in the USPublic release date: 1-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kathryn DeMott nindspressteam@ninds.nih.gov 301-496-5751 NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
May is National Stroke Awareness month
Four research centers will develop high-impact culturally tailored interventions aimed at lowering stroke risk among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Together the centers are expected to receive $40 million in funding over five years, contingent on the availability of funds from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Compared to non-Hispanic whites, racial and ethnic minorities such as African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asian-Americans, and American Indians and Alaska Natives are more likely to experience a stroke and its related disability.
"Much of the disparity in stroke risk in the United States is due to the higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as elevated blood pressure among racial and ethnic minorities. A few of the grantees are working closely with at-risk populations to develop interventions that give people tools to achieve blood pressure control," said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., deputy director, NINDS. "These research efforts will give us the traction we need to control the greatest modifiable stroke risk factor. Together, the Stroke Prevention /Intervention Research Programs represent a much needed effort to address stroke disparities in the United States."
"Each program addresses disparity from a different perspective," said Salina P. Waddy, M.D., program director at NINDS. "One will address uncontrolled blood pressure and be delivered in an individual's home. Others will test community-based strategies to improve diet and exercise behaviors. Still others will bring into focus trends at the health care system and hospital levels."
These programs will serve to reduce disparities and make progress toward the stroke objectives and targets outlined in Healthy People 2020, the nation's disease prevention and health promotion goals, she said.
The four awardees and their program goals are:
Kaiser Permanente Northern California and the University of California, San Francisco will identify African-American enrollees in the Kaiser system who have uncontrolled blood pressure. Those who choose to participate in a controlled trial will be randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: an intensive monitoring and drug dosage adjustment program, a culturally tailored diet and exercise intervention, or usual care. "The goal is to decrease the disparity in hypertension control between blacks and whites by 4 percent over one year; currently there is a 5 percent disparity in control between these racial groups," said Stephen Sidney, M.D., M.P.H., director of research clinics at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California's Division of Research in Oakland. Kaiser researchers also plan to investigate the causes of stroke in children and young adults. While this rate is still relatively low, stroke rates among young blacks in Kaiser Permanente more than doubled between 2000 and 2008, according to Dr. Sidney. The researchers will conduct studies to identify underlying reasons for this trend.
The NYU Langone Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center have teamed up to create the Center for Stroke Disparities Solutions, a consortium that includes the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, five hospital-based stroke centers, and a research network of primary care practices within New York City's Health and Hospital Corporation the largest municipal health care system in the United States. The first of the consortium's three projects in New York City will compare home blood pressure monitoring alone versus that intervention plus nurse case management by telephone, said Gbenga Ogedegbe, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., professor of population health and medicine at NYU Langone. The study will track reductions in blood pressure and prevention of recurrent stroke among 450 black and Hispanic stroke survivors with uncontrolled hypertension. "A second project will address the vulnerable period when stroke survivors transition from the hospital to their homes," said Olajide Williams, M.D., associate professor of clinical neurology at Columbia. The consortium will assess the effectiveness of a culturally tailored program to improve blood pressure control, level of functioning and quality of life in 650 homebound post-stroke patients. The team also will provide an educational video to African-American and Hispanic churches throughout New York City and gauge whether it boosts awareness about the need to call 911 immediately after the onset of even seemingly minor stroke symptoms.
The University of California, Los Angeles will focus on low-income Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American populations in the Los Angeles basin area. The first study will measure if recurrent stroke risk is reduced when community health workers use mobile health technologies during home visits to empower recent stroke survivors to eat a healthy diet, exercise and to use blood pressure medications that can substantially lower the risk of another stroke, said Barbara Vickrey, M.D., M.P.H., professor of neurology at UCLA. A second study will test the impact of culturally tailored messages about stroke warning signs and a campaign to encourage walking among African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, and Korean senior center attendees. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey will be analyzed to identify previously unknown risk factors for stroke among different racial and ethnic groups. The program's partners include Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Healthy African American Families, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging.
A fourth program aims to better identify the causes of stroke disparity. The Florida Puerto Rico Collaboration to Reduce Stroke Disparities will leverage resources from University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico, and Hospital HIMA-San Pablo Caguas, also in Puerto Rico. "Our mission is to improve the treatment and prevention of stroke among blacks and Hispanics in Florida and Puerto Rico," said Ralph L. Sacco, M.D., M.S., professor and chair of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The investigators will develop a registry of acute stroke patients treated at nearly 140 hospitals throughout Florida and Puerto Rico. The hospitals are already using national guidelines and tracking their performance on key measures of stroke care quality such as the use of the clot-busting drug t-PA within three hours of stroke, and the initiation of other antithrombotic agents and smoking cessation counseling during hospitalization. The researchers hope to gain a better understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to higher stroke risk among racial and ethnic minorities, and to identify opportunities for improvement.
###
May is National Stroke Awareness month. For more information, go to http://www.facebook.com/KnowStroke
NINDS is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The NINDS mission is to reduce the burden of neurological disease a burden borne by every age group, by every segment of society, by people all over the world.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
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NIH awards $40 million in grants to reduce stroke disparities in the USPublic release date: 1-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kathryn DeMott nindspressteam@ninds.nih.gov 301-496-5751 NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
May is National Stroke Awareness month
Four research centers will develop high-impact culturally tailored interventions aimed at lowering stroke risk among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Together the centers are expected to receive $40 million in funding over five years, contingent on the availability of funds from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Compared to non-Hispanic whites, racial and ethnic minorities such as African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asian-Americans, and American Indians and Alaska Natives are more likely to experience a stroke and its related disability.
"Much of the disparity in stroke risk in the United States is due to the higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as elevated blood pressure among racial and ethnic minorities. A few of the grantees are working closely with at-risk populations to develop interventions that give people tools to achieve blood pressure control," said Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., deputy director, NINDS. "These research efforts will give us the traction we need to control the greatest modifiable stroke risk factor. Together, the Stroke Prevention /Intervention Research Programs represent a much needed effort to address stroke disparities in the United States."
"Each program addresses disparity from a different perspective," said Salina P. Waddy, M.D., program director at NINDS. "One will address uncontrolled blood pressure and be delivered in an individual's home. Others will test community-based strategies to improve diet and exercise behaviors. Still others will bring into focus trends at the health care system and hospital levels."
These programs will serve to reduce disparities and make progress toward the stroke objectives and targets outlined in Healthy People 2020, the nation's disease prevention and health promotion goals, she said.
The four awardees and their program goals are:
Kaiser Permanente Northern California and the University of California, San Francisco will identify African-American enrollees in the Kaiser system who have uncontrolled blood pressure. Those who choose to participate in a controlled trial will be randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: an intensive monitoring and drug dosage adjustment program, a culturally tailored diet and exercise intervention, or usual care. "The goal is to decrease the disparity in hypertension control between blacks and whites by 4 percent over one year; currently there is a 5 percent disparity in control between these racial groups," said Stephen Sidney, M.D., M.P.H., director of research clinics at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California's Division of Research in Oakland. Kaiser researchers also plan to investigate the causes of stroke in children and young adults. While this rate is still relatively low, stroke rates among young blacks in Kaiser Permanente more than doubled between 2000 and 2008, according to Dr. Sidney. The researchers will conduct studies to identify underlying reasons for this trend.
The NYU Langone Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center have teamed up to create the Center for Stroke Disparities Solutions, a consortium that includes the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, five hospital-based stroke centers, and a research network of primary care practices within New York City's Health and Hospital Corporation the largest municipal health care system in the United States. The first of the consortium's three projects in New York City will compare home blood pressure monitoring alone versus that intervention plus nurse case management by telephone, said Gbenga Ogedegbe, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., professor of population health and medicine at NYU Langone. The study will track reductions in blood pressure and prevention of recurrent stroke among 450 black and Hispanic stroke survivors with uncontrolled hypertension. "A second project will address the vulnerable period when stroke survivors transition from the hospital to their homes," said Olajide Williams, M.D., associate professor of clinical neurology at Columbia. The consortium will assess the effectiveness of a culturally tailored program to improve blood pressure control, level of functioning and quality of life in 650 homebound post-stroke patients. The team also will provide an educational video to African-American and Hispanic churches throughout New York City and gauge whether it boosts awareness about the need to call 911 immediately after the onset of even seemingly minor stroke symptoms.
The University of California, Los Angeles will focus on low-income Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American populations in the Los Angeles basin area. The first study will measure if recurrent stroke risk is reduced when community health workers use mobile health technologies during home visits to empower recent stroke survivors to eat a healthy diet, exercise and to use blood pressure medications that can substantially lower the risk of another stroke, said Barbara Vickrey, M.D., M.P.H., professor of neurology at UCLA. A second study will test the impact of culturally tailored messages about stroke warning signs and a campaign to encourage walking among African-American, Hispanic, Chinese, and Korean senior center attendees. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey will be analyzed to identify previously unknown risk factors for stroke among different racial and ethnic groups. The program's partners include Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Healthy African American Families, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging.
A fourth program aims to better identify the causes of stroke disparity. The Florida Puerto Rico Collaboration to Reduce Stroke Disparities will leverage resources from University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico, and Hospital HIMA-San Pablo Caguas, also in Puerto Rico. "Our mission is to improve the treatment and prevention of stroke among blacks and Hispanics in Florida and Puerto Rico," said Ralph L. Sacco, M.D., M.S., professor and chair of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The investigators will develop a registry of acute stroke patients treated at nearly 140 hospitals throughout Florida and Puerto Rico. The hospitals are already using national guidelines and tracking their performance on key measures of stroke care quality such as the use of the clot-busting drug t-PA within three hours of stroke, and the initiation of other antithrombotic agents and smoking cessation counseling during hospitalization. The researchers hope to gain a better understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to higher stroke risk among racial and ethnic minorities, and to identify opportunities for improvement.
###
May is National Stroke Awareness month. For more information, go to http://www.facebook.com/KnowStroke
NINDS is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The NINDS mission is to reduce the burden of neurological disease a burden borne by every age group, by every segment of society, by people all over the world.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Apr. 30, 2013 ? Researchers presented results today during the 81st American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting highlighting the effective use of nerve transfer in patients suffering from brachial plexus injuries for reconstruction of elbow flexion to help improve their quality of life.
With the rise in recent years of nerve transfers as an option for brachial plexus injuries, the researchers reviewed the clinical outcomes of their patients who have undergone different nerve transfers for restoration of elbow flexion between January 2001 and December 2011. Researchers retrospectively analyzed the medical records, electrophysiological examinations and radiological images of 107 patients who underwent nerve transfer operations in the aforementioned timeframe. Pre- and post-operative assessment of motor function was carried out using the Medical Research Council (MRC) grading scale. The results of this study, "10-year experience with nerve transfers for restoration of elbow function in patients with traumatic brachial plexus injuries," will be presented by Julia Oberhoffer, MD, on April 30. Co-authors are Gregor Antoniadis, PhD; Ralph K?nig, PhD; Christian Heinen, MD; Thomas Kretschmer, PhD; Christian Wirtz, PhD; and Maria Pedro, MD.
During the time period reviewed, a total of 107 patients with a brachial plexus injury were treated by nerve transfer surgery in the researchers' institute, with seven patients lost to follow up. The average follow up was 23 months, and 49 percent of the patients recovered to MRC 3. The best results could be achieved by transferring the medial pectoral to musculocutaneous nerve (MCN), where 82 percent (n=11) recovered to MRC 3. Seventy-four percent of 31 patients who underwent an Oberlin transfer attained the same muscle strength and 80 percent of those patients (n=5) with median nerve to MCN regained MRC 3. The researchers did note that that the results of the following nerve transfers were not as encouraging: spinal accessory nerve to MCN (24 percent, N=45); phrenic nerve to MCN (17 percent, N=6); and intercostal to MCN (zero percent, N=2).
"The most important results we found in our evaluation was the significantly better outcome for the Oberlin procedure and the transfer of pectoral nerve to musculocutaneous nerve in contrast to transfer of spinal accessory nerve or phrenic nerve to musculocutaneous nerve," said Julia Oberhoffer, MD. "The reason for the huge advantage of these two transfers is the fact that you can coapt the nerve in an end-to-end way, so the nerves have to pass just one suture. Another important finding is the refutation of the well-established opinion that a nerve reconstruction has to be done as soon as possible. It only makes a difference when the reconstruction is done later than 10 months after the damage. So as plexus brachialis palsies are often devastating injuries, it is essential for the improvement of the quality of life for these patients that they will be transferred to a neurosurgical department within the first six months after a trauma, so that the operation can be conducted within the first 10 months. Furthermore a transfer where the nerves can be coapted through an end-to-end suture should always be the preferred procedure."
Dr. Oberhoffer added that "there is still no adequate explanation why some of the transfers of spinal accessory nerve to musculocutaneous nerve lead to good results and why the majority of them could not achieve a reinnervation of biceps muscle. From my point of view the main important goal for the future research is the detection of the differences between a successful outcome and a failed one to be able to appraise the operational outcome."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), via Newswise.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
A hurricane spins around Saturn's north pole, as seen in this false-color image captured by the Cassini spacecraft. In this image, red clouds sit at a lower elevation than green ones.
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI
An enormous cyclone spinning around Saturn?s north pole puts to shame even Earth?s most devastating hurricanes. New snapshots reveal that the storm?s eye spans 2,000 kilometers, making it some 30 times larger than the average Earth hurricane eye. And with a speed of more than 500 kilometers per hour, the storm?s winds blow twice as fast as a Category 5 hurricane, NASA announced April 29.
Astronomers first detected the storm several years ago during Saturn?s winter, when the north pole was shrouded in darkness (SN: 11/8/08, p. 9). When the planet?s spring sprung in 2009 and sunlight returned, NASA scientists repositioned the orbit of the Cassini spacecraft, which has watched over Saturn since 2004. It took several years before the probe was finally in the place to image the cyclone.?
Scientists aren?t sure what powers the jumbo hurricane. On Earth, warm ocean water propels such storms. With no ocean on Saturn, minute amounts of water vapor in the planet?s atmosphere may fuel the hurricane, NASA scientists say.
Suggested Reading
R. Cowen. Stormy weather on Saturn. Science News Online, published April 25, 2010. [Go to]
R. Cowen. Huge cyclone churns at Saturn?s north pole. Science News. Vol. 174, November 8, 2008, p. 9. [Go to]
Apr. 30, 2013 ? Anyone who has flown in an airplane knows about turbulence, or when the flow of a fluid -- in this case, the flow of air over the wings -- becomes chaotic and unstable. For more than a century, the field of fluid mechanics has posited that turbulence scales with inertia, and so massive things, like planes, have an easier time causing it.
Now, research led by engineers at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that this transition to turbulence can occur without inertia at all.
The study was conducted by associate professor Paulo E. Arratia and graduate student Lichao Pan, both of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics of Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science. They collaborated with professor Christian Wagner of Germany's Saarland University and with professor Alexander Morozov of Scotland's University of Edinburgh.
It was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
One of the most fundamental concepts in fluid dynamics is the Reynolds number. Named for Osborne Reynolds, the late 19th century physicist who demonstrated how fluid flowing through a pipe transitioned into a turbulent state. Reynolds numbers describe the ratio between viscous forces and inertial forces for given fluids and the conditions they are flowing in. Low Reynolds numbers are associated with "laminar" flow, which is smooth and orderly, while high Reynolds numbers are associated with turbulent flow, which is nonlinear and chaotic.
In laminar, or linear, flow, there is a direct relationship between the force applied to the fluid and how fast it moves. When the applied force is removed, viscous forces stop the fluid's motion. With turbulent, or nonlinear, flows, this relationship is no longer straight forward. This is because inertial forces keep the fluid moving even after the applied force is removed. Briefly stirring a cup of coffee with a spoon will keep the coffee swirling for minutes, but the same effect can't be achieved with a cup of honey.
"What Reynolds elegantly suggested was that the force that makes things go nonlinear or irregular is inertia, since inertia is a nonlinear force itself," Arratia said. "As water flows faster, it has more inertia and thus becomes more turbulent, which is something you can see as you turn the tap on the faucet in your sink."
The transition from smooth to turbulent has obvious implications for massive things, such as airplanes, but surprisingly, it also has an impact on small scales where mass should theoretically not play a factor. It is relevant to the flow of blood in capillaries, or in extracting oil or natural gas from porous rock, as is the case with fracking.
"In fracking, all of these liquids go through tiny pores. Originally, people thought that, since the pores were so small, there would be no inertia and therefore no turbulence, but it's there," Arratia said. "They get all of these fluctuations and unusual pressure drops, and a lot of things would fail because of it."
To explain how turbulence could arise even in the absence of inertia, Arratia's team set out to conduct an experiment similar to Reynolds' famous one, but instead of changing the inertia of the fluid, they changed the fluid itself. In their study, they pumped a polymer-infused fluid through a pipe at a constant rate. Polymers are a common feature of non-Newtonian fluids -- such as blood, ketchup or yogurt -- which have flow properties that change under certain conditions. One of the main features of non-Newtonian fluids is that their material properties, such as viscosity, are nonlinear -- there is not a direct relationship between the amount of force exerted on them and the speed at which they flow.
Another factor in the transition to turbulence is how the linear, smooth flow is initially disturbed so that a chaotic, non-linear flow begins. In Reynolds' experiment, the roughness of the walls of the pipe was sufficient to "kick" the flow into a turbulent state once a sufficient amount of inertia was present. In Arratia's experiment, this roughness was a precisely controlled via a series of cylindrical posts at the beginning of the pipe.
"After 'kicking' the pipe with these posts, we watch the fluid flow a certain distance. If that disturbance decays, the flow is laminar, but if the disturbance is maintained or grows, it's turbulent," Arratia said. "And we saw it grow."
Beyond medical or industrial applications, understanding the interplay between non-Newtonian fluids and turbulence is an important contribution to the fundamentals of fluid mechanics.
"We always thought that inertia had to be there for this transition to take place, but there are other non-linear forces out there," Arratia said. "In this case, even though we're at a low Reynolds number as there's no inertia coming from the mass, because the fluid is non-linear itself you get a very similar transition to the one Osborne Reynolds saw in 1883."
The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
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Journal Reference:
L. Pan, A. Morozov, C. Wagner, P. E. Arratia. Nonlinear Elastic Instability in Channel Flows at Low Reynolds Numbers. Physical Review Letters, 2013; 110 (17) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.174502
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index recorded its second-biggest percentage jump of the year so far on Tuesday, boosted by gains in almost all main sectors and in Suncor Energy Inc shares after a strong earnings showing.
The climb helped the index, which has advanced in eight of the last nine sessions, recover from a massive commodities-led selloff earlier this month and turn positive on the year.
An 18 percent jump in CGI Group Inc after the information technology services company reported strong fiscal second-quarter results further lifted sentiment.
Investors also closely eyed potential actions by central banks as weak European economic data heightened expectations of an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank. U.S. Federal Reserve members gathered for a two-day meeting at which they are expected to agree to sustain the bond-buying program.
Despite the recent gains, the Toronto market is flat this year so far, compared with a nearly 12 percent rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index <.spx>.
"The TSX is in a good position to narrow the performance gap," said Elvis Picardo, strategist and vice president of research at Global Securities in Vancouver.
"We've been lagging this whole bull run," he added. "You just have to wonder if investors have been too downbeat on Canada's prospects over the past few months."
Canada's economy delivered a welcome surprise in February, growing faster than expected and prompting economists to upgrade their forecasts for the first quarter, although none expect the central bank to raise interest rates any time soon.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> closed up 143.83 points, or 1.17 percent, at 12,456.50.
Nine of the 10 main sectors of the index were higher.
Suncor rose 6 percent as Canada's largest energy company increased its dividend 54 percent, said it would buy back C$2 billion ($1.97 billion) of its own shares and reported first-quarter earnings that surpassed expectations. Suncor had the biggest positive influence on the index.
"It's a pleasant surprise," Irwin Michael, portfolio manager at ABC Funds, said of Suncor's results.
"You need more of the big companies doing a little better than expected," he added. "We expect to see more dividend increases and better earnings as well."
Suncor's gains offset declines in other major oil and gas producers, which fell with oil prices.
The index's materials sector, which includes mining stocks, rose 1.4 percent. In the group, miner Goldcorp Inc advanced 2.2 percent to C$29.82.
Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, added 0.9 percent.
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) ? Newspaper publishing company Lee Enterprises Inc. said on Tuesday that it has refinanced $94 million worth of debt with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., avoiding an interest rate increase that would have gone into effect next year.
As part of the debt financing deal, Lee added as collateral its 50 percent stake in TNI Partners, which publishes the Arizona Daily Star and azstarnet.com.
Lee said the refinancing reduces the interest to a fixed rate of 9 percent, down from 11.3 percent, and extends the maturity from December 2015 to April 2017. The interest rate was set to rise to 12.05 percent in January 2014 and to 12.8 percent in January 2015.
Lee said it is paying off debt ahead of schedule. Its debt stands at $893 million, the level that it predicted it would reach in September 2014 in its bankruptcy reorganization plan. Lee ended a brief stint under bankruptcy protection in January 2012. Its debt includes $624 million due in December 2015.
Lee Chairman and CEO Mary Junck said the refinancing will reduce the company's interest expense and allow it to repay debt faster. Junck is also chairman of The Associated Press.
Lee said it didn't pay any fees in the refinancing, which has already been approved by its other lenders. The deal is expected to close in early May.
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