Measures of factory employment and new orders contracted.
New orders and the backlog of orders contracted across a range of sectors, as did employment, imports, export orders and overall business activity.
New export orders contracted to 47.5 from 50.5 against the backdrop of slower global growth and the euro zone's debt crisis.
In the weeks after the World Trade Center disaster, Alaskan fishermen reported a 15percentt drop in the sales of halibut, as high-end restaurant orders contracted and shipments were disrupted by the temporary closing of the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan.
Among the problems the Education Department found in the Asbury Park district were $898,447 in overspending in budget items for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006; misclassification of purchase orders; contract and bidding irregularities; and other accounting problems.
New factory orders contracted for the first time since April.
New domestic orders contracted more sharply and the downward pressure on prices intensified, offsetting improvements in industrial output, new export orders and employment, all of which still contracted in March, but less sharply than in February.
"New export orders contracted after a temporary rebound in March, suggesting external demand for China's exporters remains weak," said Qu Hongbin, China chief economist at HSBC in a statement.
His business papers were in order: contracts for his real-estate business, tax documents, the forgettable dealings of a successful man – hardly what a killer might carry.
Most research on higher-order contracts has adopted a black-box approach where only input and output are checked.
