Toronto mayor to stay in power pending appeal of ouster

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford can stay in power pending an appeal of a conflict of interest ruling that ordered him out of his job as leader of Canada’s biggest city, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Madam Justice Gladys Pardu of the Ontario Divisional Court suspended a previous court ruling that said Ford should be ousted. Ford’s appeal of that ruling is set to be heard on January 7, but a decision on the appeal could take months.

Justice Pardu stressed that if she had not suspended the ruling, Ford would have been out of office by next week. “Significant uncertainty would result and needless expenses may be incurred if a by-election is called,” she said.

If Ford wins his appeal, he will get to keep his job until his term ends at the end of 2014. If he loses, the city council will either appoint a successor or call a special election, in which Ford is likely to run again.

“I can’t wait for the appeal, and I’m going to carry on doing what the people elected me to do,” Ford told reporters at City Hall following the decision.

Ford, a larger-than-life character who took power on a promise to “stop the gravy train” at City Hall, has argued that he did nothing wrong when he voted to overturn an order that he repay money that lobbyists had given to a charity he runs.

Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland disagreed, ruling last week that Ford acted with “willful blindness” in the case, and must leave office by December 10.

Ford was elected mayor in a landslide in 2010, but slashing costs without cutting services proved harder than he expected, and his popularity has fallen steeply.

He grabbed unwelcome headlines for reading while driving on a city expressway, for calling the police when a comedian tried to film part of a popular TV show outside his home, and after reports that city resources were used to help administer the high-school football team he coaches.

The conflict-of-interest drama began in 2010 when Ford, then a city councillor, used government letterhead to solicit donations for the football charity created in his name for underprivileged children.

Toronto’s integrity commissioner ordered Ford to repay the C$ 3,150 ($ 3,173) the charity received from lobbyists and companies that do business with the city.

Ford refused to repay the money, and in February 2012 he took part in a city council debate on the matter and then voted to remove the sanctions against him – despite being warned by the council speaker that voting would break the rules.

He pleaded not guilty in September, stating that he believed there was no conflict of interest as there was no financial benefit for the city. The judge dismissed that argument.

In a rare apology after last week’s court ruling, he said the matter began “because I love to help kids play football”.

Ford faces separate charges in a C$ 6 million libel case about remarks he made about corruption at City Hall, and is being audited for his campaign finances. The penalty in the audit case could also include removal from office.

(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Russ Blinch, Nick Zieminski; and Peter Galloway)

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25 top-rated Facebook games from 2012

Games can be both a welcome and an annoying diversion on Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network. This year, Facebook crossed a big milestone — reaching 1 billion active users. Game companies such as “FarmVille” creator Zynga Inc. and Rovio Entertainment Ltd. of “Angry Birds” fame seek to tap into that vast base of users to gain more players for their games.

This week, Facebook Inc. issued a list of the 25 top-rated games that launched on Facebook in 2012. The company says the rankings are based on user ratings and engagement with the games. It’s the same methodology that Facebook uses to rank apps in its App Center.

Some of the games are played on Facebook’s website, while others are only on Apple Inc.‘s iOS or Google Inc.‘s Android devices using Facebook’s app.

Here’s the list:

1. “SongPop” (by FreshPlanet, on Facebook.com, iOS and Android)

2. “Dragon City” (by Social Point, on Facebook.com)

3. “Bike Race” (by Top Free Games, on iOS)

4. “Subway Surfers” (by Kiloo, on iOS and Android)

5. “Angry Birds Friends (by Rovio, on Facebook.com)

6. “FarmVille 2″ (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

7. “Scramble with Friends” (by Zynga, on iOS)

8. “Clash of Clans” (by Supercell, on iOS)

9. “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” (by Playdom, on Facebook.com)

10. “Draw Something” (by Zynga, on iOS and Android)

11. “Hay Day” (by Supercell, on iOS)

12. “Baseball Heroes” (by Syntasia, on Facebook.com)

13. “ChefVille” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

14. “CSR Racing” (by NaturalMotion Games, on iOS)

15. “Candy Crush Saga” (by King.com, on Facebook.com and iOS)

16. “Matching With Friends” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com)

17. “Legend Online” (by Oasis Games, on Facebook.com)

18. “Jurassic Park Builder” (by Ludia, on Facebook.com)

19. “Dungeon Rampage” (by Rebel Entertainment, on Facebook.com)

20. “Pockie Ninja II Social” (by NGames Ltd., on Facebook.com)

21. “Jetpack Joyride” (by Halfbrick, on Facebook.com)

22. “Social Empires” (by Social Point, on Facebook.com and iOS)

23. “Bil ve Fethet” (by Peak Games, on Facebook.com)

24. “Ruby Blast Adventures” (by Zynga, on Facebook.com and iOS)

25. “Pyramid Solitaire Saga” (by King.com, on Facebook.com)

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Asthma symptoms may vary during menstrual cycle

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Some women may have more or fewer asthma symptoms, such as coughing and wheezing, depending on their time of the month, a new study suggests.

Researchers said spikes and dips in estrogen and other hormones likely affect the lungs and other physiological responses involved in breathing. However, it’s still unclear whether the findings could improve doctors’ treatment of women with asthma.

The menstrual cycle “is a very important cycle… with all the biological changes and physiological things that happen,” said Dr. Samar Farha from the Cleveland Clinic, who studies asthma and other respiratory diseases but wasn’t involved in the new research.

“(Some) asthmatics describe that just before their menses, they get a worsening of their symptoms,” she told Reuters Health – but more scientific assessments of what’s going on have come to conflicting conclusions.

For the new study, researchers surveyed close to 4,000 women in Northern Europe who had normal periods and weren’t taking birth control pills.

Along with other health and lifestyle questions, they asked women to report when their last period started, as well as whether they’d had any breathing-related problems in the past three days – such as wheezing or waking up with a coughing attack.

Just under eight percent of women in the study had been diagnosed with asthma. Between two and six percent reported recent wheezing, coughing and/or shortness of breath.

Dr. Ferenc Macsali of Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, and colleagues found the number of women with of each of those symptoms changed depending on where they were in their menstrual cycle.

For example, wheezing spiked just before and just after mid-cycle (ovulation). The dip in between corresponds to peaks in estrogen, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, the researchers write in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Complaints of shortness of breath and coughing both declined just after women got their periods, and shortness of breath was also more rare right before menses started.

Macsali’s team saw cyclical patterns in breathing symptoms in women with and without asthma.

What explains those patterns is still up for debate. Estrogen may affect the lungs directly, the researchers said. Insulin resistance and markers of general inflammation are known to vary during the menstrual cycle, which could also play a role in when breathing symptoms get better or worse.

“The observed patterns in our study are most likely a result of… complex hormonal processes,” the researchers wrote, “and it does not seem plausible that one sex hormone should explain the variation in respiratory symptoms during the menstrual cycle.”

Women with asthma should “be aware of a possibility that their symptoms are influenced by day in cycle,” Macsali told Reuters Health in an email.

Not all asthmatics will notice those changes, Farha pointed out.

For women whose symptoms do get a little worse at certain times of the month, it’s also unclear whether that ever puts them in serious danger, she added. But Farha said it may still be worth bringing up the issue with their doctor.

“It could lead to more personalized therapy, based on where their symptoms are getting worse, in which phases of their menstrual cycle,” Farha said. “You could change therapy and escalate therapy based on (those) phases.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SGe7b0 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, online November 29, 2012.

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TSX ends higher as CP Rail gains on cost-cutting

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian stocks ended higher on Wednesday as optimism about Chinese economic growth boosted energy stocks and investors cheered a cost-cutting plan at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd .

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> closed up 20.11 points, or 0.17 percent, at 12,157.29.</.gsptse>

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp)

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Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.

Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.

“These were whole families among the registered missing,” Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. “Entire families may have been washed away.”

The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha’s ferocious winds.

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging flood waters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.

A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. “I have three children,” she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.

“The water rose so fast,” she told AP. “It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end.”

In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns that were so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.

“We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs,” Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $ 4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.

The sun was shining brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.

But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day’s flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.

After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.

As of Wednesday evening, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III’s government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.

A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.

The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon’s devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.

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Google updates Gmail for iOS to support multiple accounts, deliver autocomplete suggestions

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Disney, Netflix sign exclusive TV distribution deal

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co agreed to give Netflix exclusive TV distribution rights to its movies, becoming the first major studio to stream its movies to TV viewers via Netflix instead of distributing them to HBO, Showtime or other premium TV channels.

The agreement begins in 2016, after Disney‘s current deal with Liberty Media’s pay-TV channel Starz expires.

The deal gives Netflix streaming rights to movies from Disney‘s live action and animation studios, including those from Pixar, Marvel, and the recently acquired Lucasfilms. Disney bought the famed studio founded by George Lucas and responsible for the “Star Wars” franchise for $ 4 billion on October 30.

Movies from Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studios are not included in the deal, as that studio distributes its movies through CBS’s Showtime on TV. Disney recently signed a deal to distribute DreamWorks’ films theatrically after the studio’s deal with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures expired.

Under the deal’s terms, Netflix can stream Disney movies beginning seven to nine months after they appear in theaters, as Starz had done in Disney’s prior agreement. The deal does not cover DVD rentals of Disney movies.

The agreement follows similar deals Netflix has inked with smaller studios, including Relativity Media, The Weinstein company and DreamWorks Animation.

Netflix shares were up 12.9 percent to $ 85.83 in afternoon trading following news of the agreement.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Peter Lauria and Tim Dobbyn)

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Baxter to buy Sweden’s Gambro for $4 billion

(Reuters) – Baxter International Inc said on Tuesday that it would buy privately held Swedish kidney dialysis product company Gambro AB for about $ 4 billion, a tie up that would put it in the No. 2 position in the dialysis market.

Baxter, whose shares were down more than 1 percent in afternoon trading, will finance the acquisition with debt and cash. The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of next year, marks Baxter’s biggest acquisition since Chief Executive Robert Parkinson took the helm in 2004.

Baxter manufactures kidney dialysis equipment, drug infusion pumps and blood therapy products. The Gambro acquisition will round out Baxter’s renal business, which accounted for almost one-fifth of the company’s 2011 revenue of $ 13.89 billion.

Gambro is one of the largest makers of equipment for hemodialysis, which is generally performed in a hospital or clinic. The dialysis from Baxter’s machines is called peritoneal and can be performed at home.

Gambro’s sales have been flat to weaker in recent years, undermined partly by capacity constraints, but Baxter executives voiced confidence during a conference call with analysts that the business can be turned around.

“It is a big market and it is going to continue to grow for a long time. There are only so many kidney transplants available in the world,” Parkinson told analysts.

Hemodialysis is a method that is used to remove waste products from the blood when the kidneys fail. Another method is peritoneal dialysis, a treatment for severe chronic kidney disease that uses the patient’s own membrane inside the body as a filter to clear waste. The third treatment option is a kidney transplant.

“At the end of the day, this is an acquisition that is not dependent on any one pathway for value creation. It is not dependent on a major new product launch or technological advancement, and is not dependent on commercial assumptions that our overly optimistic. This is an acquisition that is dependent on execution,” he said. “This is something we know we can do and do well.”

He said the planned acquisition did not represent a change in the direction for the company, which has invested in stem cell research and a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Shares of Baxter were down 1 percent at $ 65.14 on Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

TOO PRICEY?

Some analysts said they were concerned by the price tag and that the company will scale back its share buyback program in order to acquire Gambro.

“I think the deal makes sense. I think it does fit well with their existing renal business and I think there probably are synergies, but at the same time it is a lot of cash they are paying for this thing. They are taking on a significant amount of debt,” said Michael Matson, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA.

Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said it put Baxter’s A3 rating on review for downgrade following Gambro announcement.

Derrick Sung, an analyst with Bernstein Research, noted that Baxter will be paying 2.5 times sales, which is not “unreasonable” but appears to be on the high end of comparable deals.

The Gambro deal marks further consolidation in the kidney dialysis market, where Gambro and Baxter compete against companies including U.S.-based DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc and Germany’s Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co KGaA, the biggest player in the hemodialysis market.

“I think in the longer term, the ambition is to try to challenge Fresenius,” currently the market leader, analyst Kristofer Liljeberg of Sweden’s Carnegie investment bank said.

However, he said, Gambro, which is owned by Swedish investment holding company Investor AB and its partly owned private equity company, EQT, had been struggling in recent years with slow growth and price competition.

Liljeberg said the deal was a good one for family-owned Investor, which controls several of Sweden’s top companies. Since they bought Gambro, Investor and EQT have sold off its clinics and a blood component business.

“This is a good long-term home for Gambro,” Borje Ekholm, CEO of Investor, said. “These two companies have a lot of things in common. They share similar values to improve the lives of patients. They have a very complementary geographic fit.”

A GROWING MARKET

More than 2 million patients globally are on some form of dialysis, and that has been increasing more than 5 percent annually, in part because of the rising rates of diabetes and hypertension.

Excluding special items, Baxter expects the Gambro transaction to reduce earnings per diluted share by 10 to 15 cents in 2013 and be neutral or add modestly to them in 2014. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

Excluding the impact of special items and estimated amortization of intangible assets, the company said the deal should not affect earnings in 2013 and add 20 to 25 cents a diluted share in 2014.

Baxter said it expected the deal to add to earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, after 2014.

The suburban Chicago company said it expected over five years to increase sales by 7 to 8 percent, excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, on a compound annual basis, with earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, rising by 8 to 10 percent.

“Companies like Baxter can unlock a fair amount of value when they find strategic use for their overseas cash,” said Piper Jaffray analyst Matt Miksic.

Indeed, Baxter said it planned to finance the deal with cash overseas. Multinational companies that have large international sales often have difficulties moving that cash back to the United States where they can put it to use.

J.P. Morgan was Baxter’s financial adviser for the deal.

(This story has been corrected to remove ticker EQT.N that is not associated with EQT, the private equity firm, in paragraph 17. Also corrects paragraph two to add dropped word “down”)

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore, Debra Sherman in Chicago, Caroline Humer in New York, and Patrick Lannin and Mia Shanley in Stockholm; editing by Joyjeet Das, Lisa Von Ahn, Matthew Lewis and Marguerita Choy)

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American Air passenger service agents vote on unionizing

(Reuters) – American Airlines passenger service agents, the only major employee group at the carrier not unionized, began voting Tuesday on whether to be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union.

About 9,700 airport agents and reservations representatives are eligible to cast ballots in a vote being conducted by the National Mediation Board (NMB), said Chuck Porcari, a CWA spokesman. Voting ends January 15.

“All of the other work groups at American are unionized, and we’re not,” said Bridget Powell, a passenger service agent with American and union activist. “When it comes to negotiating with the company, we don’t have that option.”

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the vote last week when it denied American’s request for a stay of an earlier ruling that upheld the election.

“We’re encouraging all our eligible employees to vote,” American Airlines spokesman Bruce Hicks said. “It’s a very important election for them.”

American says it sought to block the union vote because at least half of the eligible workers didn’t show interest in joining a union, as required by a law that took effect this year.

The NMB said that the older, 35 percent standard should apply because the union had filed for an election before the law changed earlier this year, according to the CWA.

The CWA says a union is needed to protect American’s agents, who perform tasks such as checking in passengers and taking customer service calls, as the company has been outsourcing agent jobs and cutting pay and benefits.

American parent AMR , which has about 80,000 non-management employees, is reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to cut costs. Earlier this year it reached agreements with its unionized flight attendants and ground workers on contracts that it said cut costs by 17 percent.

American’s pilots are due to wrap up voting on a tentative agreement on Friday that offers an initial 4 percent pay raise and a 13.5 percent equity stake in AMR after it exits bankruptcy.

American offered equity stakes of 4.8 percent and 3 percent, respectively, in contracts it reached this year with unionized ground workers and flight attendants.

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Leslie Gevirtz)

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WestJet embraces tech to woo business travelers

TORONTO (Reuters) – WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new Internet ticket booking system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travelers, its chief executive said on Monday.

Canada’s second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new online booking engine, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

“Companies evolve or they die,” Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky told Reuters in a phone interview from the company’s Calgary head office.

“We’re 16 and going on 17 years old and we can’t stay just as we were 17 years ago. The world has changed. And we are changing to be more relevant for a broader segment of guests.”

The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.

Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to C$ 75 ($ 75.48) from C$ 50. Mid-tier tickets will have a C$ 50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet’s bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

“It’s time for us to be more serious with respect to going after business travelers because frankly, they’re the ones who are booking last-minute and are happy to pay for the conveniences,” Saretsky said.

WestJet will launch its premium economy service with 24 seats per plane, but will consider expansion if it proves “wildly successful,” he added.

POISED FOR CHANGE

WestJet, which has spent about C$ 40 million over the past two years on technology projects, is poised for major changes in 2013 as it readies to launch a new regional airline, Encore.

Saretsky hopes that WestJet’s switch in coming weeks to a new Internet phone system will allow ticket reservation agents to work from home and help make room for Encore staff.

Some 750 reservation agents work at WestJet’s Calgary offices, which house about 2,400 staff. Space will be needed for Encore employees over the next 18 months while their office, hangars and maintenance stores are constructed at the WestJet campus.

Encore will be launch in the second half of 2013, “probably closer to July than December,” Saretsky said, with seven Bombardier Q400 planes.

While WestJet won’t announce Encore’s schedule until Jan 21, the carrier will initially serve only “a handful” of new cities, with ticket prices up to 50 percent below Air Canada’s, he added.

Over the next two months, WestJet will also roll out a guest notification system that alerts travelers via email about their flights, allowing them to check in remotely.

Such self-service technology will be critical as WestJet faces increasing labor costs, Saretsky said.

Wage and benefit costs, which represent about a third of operating costs, have climbed 50 percent since WestJet was founded in 1996.

“You can see that creates a little bit of drag on earnings,” Saretsky said. “We’ve got to find ways of reducing our component costs.”

If WestJet can increase self service options for travelers, that could limit the need for new employees, Saretsky said. Management also wants to improve attendance management, so that fewer employees book off sick around long weekends, and more quickly clean and process planes between flights, he said.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Peter Galloway)

(This story was corrected to show that WestJet is replacing its Internet booking engine, not entire reservation system, in the first and second paragraphs)

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