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Despite the continuous expansion of the manufacturing industry in the United States, the pace for that growth slowed during the month of May, according to measures of order and production. The Institute for Supply Management, which assesses the expansion of manufacturing, says that the industry is increasing but only at a modest pace. The ISM said on June 2 that its manufacturing index fell from 54.9 in April to 53.2 in May for the United States. While any reading above 50 indicates expansion, the index has not been that low since February of this year. Manufacturers are paying higher prices for raw materials right now, as well, which could affect inflation if companies pass on these costs. ISM also said that factories added fewer jobs during the month of May. However, despite the...

On June 5, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed a bill into law that would change the state's definition of an optometrist by allowing these types of eye doctors to perform certain types of eye-related surgery. The bill passed the Louisiana State Senate on May 21 in a 25-12 vote, and the Louisiana House on May 5 in a 66-30 vote. The passing of Louisiana's House Bill 1065, sponsored by Rep. Rogers Pope (R-Denham Springs), makes Louisiana the third state in the country after Oklahoma and Kentucky to allow optometrists to perform these procedures. The bill stipulates that the types of surgery allowed cannot involve needles, and they also cannot be the kinds of surgery that would require incisions or stitches. The new law allows the state's optometrists who want the authorization for s...

School is out for the summer at Ohio's Youngstown State University. Now that students have gone home, it's time for the construction workers to move in for a planned series of renovations and new constructions that will cost around $10 million. “This is one of the most-aggressive construction seasons we’ve had in a long time,” Richard White, associate director of planning and construction at Youngstown State, told trustees at a committee meeting earlier this month. According to a June 16 article in The Vindicator, the construction will include completion of the Veterans Resource Center on Wick Avenue, which will cost $1.25 million on its own; several roof renovations across campus; elevator upgrades and more. “They aren’t big-dollar jobs, but they’re spread out,” John Hyden, execu...

On Monday, June 2, Sbarro, the pizza chain known as a mall food court staple, exited bankruptcy with new owners, less debt and a plan to rebrand its business, according to a forbes.com article. The news comes less than three months after Sbarro filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than three years, according to Forbes. In February of this year, Sbarro announced it would close 155 of the 400 restaurants it owns across North America. It still owns more than 800 locations around the world and about 600 more locations owned by franchisees, which have been unaffected by the bankruptcies. To help rebrand its image of selling reheated pizza, Sbarro intends to shift its offerings toward its fast-casual Pizza Cucinova restaurant,which cooks personal, made-to-order pi...

It's been just over a year since the British newspaper The Guardian began releasing leaked intelligence information from former NSA analyst Edward Snowden. In partnership with the paper's Glenn Greenwald, Snowden painted a picture of a National Security Agency that had become more like the tyrannical government in Orwell's 1984 than a benevolent body that just wanted to keep the United States safe. The conclusion? We've all, every single one of us that uses the internet, have been and continue to be watched online. Huge tech companies, from Google to Twitter, promised to start encrypting their users data and closing security holes -- not a foolproof way to ward off the NSA, but encryption makes it more difficult for them to act on their carte blanche. While many of our most used service...

The Pittsburgh-area Woodland Hills Academy will be receiving extensive renovations over the 2014-15 school year, according to a May 26 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article. The renovation work, to cost around $15 million total, will require the school's more than 500 students and teachers to relocate for at least one academic year to the Word of God School in nearby Swissvale, the article states. The renovations will use about 80% of remaining funds left from a bond that the Woodland Hills School District took out in 2005. The Woodland Hills Academy Building, approximately a century old, is expected to receive a number of updates and upgrades during the renovation. Some of the district's planned changes include increasing lighting panels throughout the building, an elevator and lowered water ...

A personal shopping and same day delivery courier service from eBay might be facing serious troubles, according to anonymous sources,after reports surfaced speculating that the company might shut down their eBay Now program. In 2012, eBay launched the same day delivery service to compete with other local delivery companies in large cities, but now the high costs and workforce issues might put a stop to eBay Now in the future.At the end of April, eBay fired its team of "valets" and began using third party courier services instead. Yet the service is still costing the company a lot in resources, and it may have lost some or all of its pricing deal with retail giant Best Buy, a lucrative source for the company's program. Although eBay announced plans to expand their eBay Now services to Lo...

The Eastern practice of acupuncture as an alternative form of veterinary treatment has made its way to American shores -- and it is growing in popularity at a rapid rate, according to a May 5 Slate article. Many American veterinary schools now offer animal acupuncture courses, and there are approximately 4,000 veterinarians across the country who are qualified to stick needles in your pet in exchange for money. However, expert opinions on whether veterinary acupuncture is actually an effective form of treatment are highly conflicted. Most of the scientific studies intending to prove the effectiveness of this practice so far have been unreliable -- according to Slate, four out of every five studies on animal acupuncture are unreliable; the fifth usually disproves the idea that acupunctur...

The reign of energy-efficient coil light bulbs is effectively over, and popular LED (light-emitting diode) lights may be replaced much sooner than anticipated. "OLED (organic light-emitting diode) lighting replaces the small, bright dots of LEDs with sheets of light that aren't so piercingly bright," CNET explains. "That means they can illuminate subjects directly without reflectors, diffusers, and other apparatus needed to spread light and protect eyes from glare." Products using OLED lighting are already in the works. Car manufacturers, specifically Jaguar Land Rover, will release new models with OLED displays. Similarly, Apple's iWatch, "poised to hit the consumer space in 2014," will consist of a "flexible plastic OLED screen," according to +Plastic Electronics. Researchers belie...