Shale Tavern opens in Lisbon

Shale Tavern opens in Lisbon

LISBON

A ribbon-cutting ceremony, hosted by Naffah Hospitality Group, is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. today for the new Shale Tavern & Grille at 40964 state Route 154 in Lisbon next to the Days Inn just off state Route 11.

Shale Tavern & Grille said it will provide residents of Lisbon, the multicounty area and members of the new shale industry with fun and casual dining.

Bidding to start for domain suffixes

NEW YORK

Bidding will begin this week for words and brand names such as “.sport,” “.NYC” and “.bank” to join “.com” as online monikers.

Up to 1,000 domain-name suffixes — the “.com” in an Internet address — could be added each year in the most sweeping change to the domain-name system since its creation in the 1980s.

To some, the system will lead to “.cash.” To others, it will mean “.confusion.”

The idea is to let Las Vegas hotels, casinos and other attractions congregate around “.Vegas” or a company such as Canon Inc. to draw customers to “cameras.Canon” or “printers.Canon.” The new system also will make Chinese, Japanese and Swahili versions of “.com” possible.

Some companies and entrepreneurs already have expressed interest in applying for a suffix and possibly earning millions of dollars a year from people and groups wanting a website that ends in that name.

Others are skeptical, though. They worry that an expansion will mean more addresses available to scams that use similar-sounding names such as “Amazom” rather than “Amazon” to trick people into giving passwords and credit-card information. Others worry that new suffixes could create additional platforms for hate groups or lead to addresses ending in obscenities.

Hiring rises; job openings decline

WASHINGTON

U.S. employers stepped up their hiring in November but pulled back slightly on the number of jobs they advertised.

The mostly favorable report shows companies are gaining more confidence in the economy and filling more of their open positions. It follows other encouraging data on hiring that suggest 2012 may be a better year for job growth.

Employers filled almost 4.15 million jobs in November, a 3 percent increase from the previous month, the Labor Department said Tuesday. It also nearly matched September’s hiring level, which was the highest since May 2010.

Russian space chief: Sabotage possible

MOSCOW

Some recent Russian satellite failures may have been the result of sabotage by foreign forces, Russia’s space chief said Tuesday, in comments apparently aimed at the United States.

Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin stopped short of accusing any specific country of disabling Russian satellites, but in an interview in the daily Izvestia he said some Russian craft had suffered “unexplained” malfunctions while flying over another side of the globe beyond the reach of his nation’s tracking facilities.

Vindicator staff/wire reports