NATION/WORLD
Saturday, October 24, 2015
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Phew: U.S. stocks return to
black after summer swoon
Illegally trafficked leopard and tiger heads stored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforce-
ment fill the shelves of a warehouse inside the National Wildlife Property Repository in Commerce City, Colo.
Warehouse exposes
cost of poaching trade
Story and photos by
BRENNAN LINSLEY
Associated Press
COMMERCE CITY, Colo.
— Elephant tusks, leopard
heads, crocodile skin purses
and tiger skins — more than
1.5 million items in all — ¿ll
the shelves of a warehouse on
a wildlife refuge near Denver.
The National Wildlife
Property Repository is the
only place in the United States
that stores such a large collec-
tion of seized wildlife items. It
provides a macabre look at the
cost of the global traf¿cking
of endangered and threatened
animals.
The contents of the
Colorado center operated by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service¶s Of¿ce of /aw
Enforcement include an array
of animal parts, large and
small, and the items made
from them — skins, carved
ivory, boots, even medicines.
The con¿scated items come
from law enforcement agen-
cies around the country.
“You can think of us as
customs for wildlife,” said
Coleen Schaefer, who super-
vises the repository.
A
multibillion-dollar
industry, the black market in
wildlife is the fourth-most-prof-
itable in the world, after illegal
traf¿cking in weapons, drugs
and humans, Schaefer said.
The repository has a loan
program for schools, museums
and nonpro¿ts that have a
conservation message. It also
sends items to research insti-
tutions.
“Our main purpose is to
provide conservation educa-
tion about the legal and illegal
wildlife trade,” Schaefer said.
Nearby is the National
Eagle Repository, also a
one-of-a-kind facility in the
U.S. that stores dead bald and
golden eagles and their parts
and feathers. Alaska Natives
and Native Americans in
federally recognized tribes
may use the feathers for reli-
gious purposes.
Use of the center’s feathers
reduces pressure to take eagles
from the wild, the Fish and
Wildlife Service says.
BRIEFLY
Bush slashing
spending, shifting
staff amid
campaign woes
VIRGINIA BEACH,
Va. (AP) — Republican
presidential candidate Jeb
Bush is drastically slashing
campaign spending,
including an across-the-
board pay cut for staff, and
focusing on early states, as
the one-time front-runner
seeks to salvage his bid for
the GOP nomination.
The moves will reduce
the campaign’s payroll by 40
percent, while also cutting
travel costs by 20 percent
and eliminating extraneous
overhead spending.
The changes mark a
signi¿cant setback for a
campaign that spent months
building a large operation,
but there are no signs
Bush is on the verge of
withdrawing from the race.
During an event Friday
at Regent University in
Virginia, Bush said the
moves will allow his
campaign to operate “lean
and mean” going forward.
Asked whether the changes
signaled trouble for his
White House hopes, he said,
“It means I have the ability
to adapt.”
The former Florida
governor — a son and
brother of former presidents
— has been under pressure
from supporters to revamp
his campaign as the early
voting contests draw closer.
The ¿rst-to-vote Iowa
caucuses take place 100 days
from Friday.
Despite ¿nancial and
organizational advantages,
Bush has struggled to break
out of a crowded Republican
¿eld so far dominated by
unorthodox candidates,
including billionaire
Donald Trump and retired
neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
A seized ivory carving is tagged inside the ware-
house. More than 20,000 elephants are being killed
annually despite some progress in anti-poaching ef-
forts and the increasing awareness of governments,
according to Lamine Sebogo, a representative from
the World Wildlife Fund in March 2013.
A seized stuffed tiger embryo sits in the warehouse.
There are an estimated 3,200 tigers left in the wild.
NEW YORK (AP) —
Maybe you shouldn’t have
put your money under a
mattress after all.
The stock market is back
in the black for the year
after a bruising late-August
tumble that had investors
worrying about their money
in a way they hadn’t in four
years.
A three-week surge in
stocks has now lifted the
Standard & Poor’s 500
index above where it was
at the beginning of 2015 for
the ¿rst time since summer.
The S&P 500 fell 12
percent from its mid-July
high to its depths in late
August,
as
investors
worried
that
slowing
growth in China, along with
continued economic weak-
ness in Europe and Japan,
would crush any hopes of
stronger global growth.
It was the ¿rst correction
in four years, and it looked
like investors in the U.S.
stock market could be on
track for their ¿rst annual
losses, including dividends,
since 2008.
Then central bankers
and stronger corporate
pro¿ts helped turn things
around. The world’s three
biggest economies, the
U.S., China and Europe,
moved to push interest rates
down or postpone expected
rate increases. That gave
investors more money to
buy stocks and other assets,
which pushed up prices.
And what was thought
to be a bleak U.S. corporate
earnings season started to
look a lot brighter in recent
days, especially when tech
giants Amazon and Google
parent company Alphabet
posted surprisingly strong
pro¿ts this week.
While investors could
have hoped for fatter returns
by this point in 2015, they
are now better off than
if they had done nothing
with their money. Here’s
a look at how $10,000
invested back in January
in the stock market and in
other common investments
would have fared.
STOCKS
Investments in the S&P
500 through an index mutual
fund or exchange-traded
)HGVFRQ¿VFDWH
lethal-injection
drugs imported by
2 states
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) —
Compounding the nation’s
severe shortage of execution
drugs, federal authorities
have con¿scated shipments
of a lethal-injection chemical
that Arizona and Texas tried
to bring in from abroad,
saying such imports are
illegal.
The Food and Drug
Administration said Friday
that it impounded orders
of sodium thiopental, an
anesthetic that has been
used in past executions in
combination with drugs that
paralyze the muscles and
stop the heart. The anesthetic
currently has no legal uses in
the U.S. Arizona paid nearly
$27,000 for the sodium
thiopental, which federal
agents intercepted.
DON’T MISS OUT!
They’ve served our country with
courage and honor. They’ve left
behind loved ones to risk their lives
in protecting their country. They’ve
defended our freedoms and ideals.
They make us proud to be
Americans.
Join us for Veterans Day,
Wednesday, November 11, 2015 in
the East Oregonian and Hermiston
Herald, as we honor the men and
women of the U.S. Military. Their
courage, hard work and sacrifice
are the backbone of our nation,
protecting freedom, liberty, justice
and all we hold dear.
PRICES
1x4 - $ 40.00
2x3 - $ 55.00
Full Color
Included
Private Party Only
Bring in or call 1-800-522-0255
with a photo and message to your
hero to give them a special thanks.
Celebrate Your
Loved Ones in Our
DEADLINE
Veterans Day
Wednesday, November 5 th
SALUTE
Staff Sergeant
Joel Davis
US Marines
Veteran
2x3 EXAMPLE
We are so
proud of you
for serving
your country.
Example
Bring us a picture of your servicemen or servicewomen or veteran by November 5 th
along with the form below and we will include them in our “Veterans Day Salute”
on November 11 th in the East Oregonian and Hermiston Herald at no charge.
For more information, call Paula at 1-800-522-0255 or Hermiston Herald at 541-564-4530.
Love Evelyn,
Joe and Cheryl
Service Person’s Name
Your Name
Your Address
Your Phone Number
Military Rank
1x4 EXAMPLE
For more information call Paula at
541-278-2678 or 1-800-522-0255 or
Hermiston Herald at 541-564-4530.
Honoring those who have served and those
that are currently serving our country!
Military Branch
fund are up 2.4 percent for
the year, including divi-
dends that companies pay
throughout the year. If you
had put $10,000 into the
SPDR S&P 500 ETF, your
investment would be worth
$10,244 today.
BONDS
/ike the stock market,
bonds have seesawed
throughout the year and are
almost unchanged from the
end of 2014. An investor
who put money into a broad
portfolio of bonds measured
either by the Barclays
Aggregate Bond Index or
a bond market fund like
the Vanguard Total Bond
Market Index Fund would
have earned 1.4 percent
this year, including interest.
Their $10,000 would have
turned into $10,142.
THE BIG APPLE
Investors have made
Apple the world’s most
valuable company, and
they’ve done pretty nicely
in Apple stock in 2015. The
company reported block-
buster sales and pro¿ts
over the last year, thanks
to the popularity of its new,
larger-screen iPhones.
But investors have
fretted over Apple’s ability
to maintain its prodigious
growth, especially amid
economic
uncertainty
in China. Apple shares
slumped in August and
again in late September,
but they spent less time
down in the dumps than the
S&P 500. If you invested
$10,000 in Apple at the start
of this year, you would have
$10,925 now.
FOOL’S GOLD?
Gold is often touted
as one of the safest of all
investments, because it
rises along with inÀation
and allows investors to
retain buying power. So
far this year, gold has been
nothing but dull. A $10,000
investment in the largest
exchange-traded gold fund
would be worth $9,817
now.
CASH MONEY
Banks
are
paying
almost nothing on savings
accounts, CDs or money
market funds because the
Federal Reserve has kept its
own rates so low.
Currently Serving Veteran (Check One)
Deliver to:
East Oregonian
211 SE Byers Ave.
• Pendleton, OR
Hermiston Herald
333 E. Main.
• Hermiston, OR
or e-mail to classifieds@eastoregonian.com
J OSEPH B. D AVIS
J OSEPH S MITH
Thank you for
your service!
Love always
Marcy, Julie &
Emily