we will talk to the company's cfo howard miller this hour. hello, welcome to "countdown." reports goods company quarterly results. caroline is here to tell us all about it. >> this is first-half numbers. rbp is the pharmaceutical unit it might be spinning off. they are continuing to perform in challenging markets. what are those challenges? they are rather sluggish. with russiancerns where they have got exposure as well. quarter was growth of four percent, meeting analyst estimates. profit alsolf net in line with estimates. might be in line with sales. sales in line. both under stress with the british pound as well. that is not your cash exposure. when you are bringing your money back from your sales in russia and north america, it's going to be under stress when you have the pound being so strong. we are going to look at what happens to the pharmaceutical unit. they spin it off? will they sell shares? are pursuing the market. will they spin it off and potentially sell shares later? pursue with ato separate listing. >> since october of last year they said they are going to

howard miller spoke to us earlier. >> we had to profit warnings and a difficult.'t predict with certainty. you must be cautious. >> let's bring in kerry london. abouttalk a little bit the next tier. the have learned some lessons. sustainablevery through the rest of the year? >> he is talking about how the need to be cautious. part of the reason that they are looking at second quarter teen trick here is their adding a ton of capacity. they are talking about competition being there and that also weighs on prices. this isextent, self-created. it will be interesting to see. they have new planes come in. they have 11 planes coming in. they will keep your planes on the ground. they traditionally keep them on the ground during the winter. it is very much a part of their on key add frequencies routes and key business roots. they want to expand the network. >> if you are running air france, would you be nervous about what you heard this morning? >> that is a very good question. the legacy carriers still have a lot of work to do. we have seen both air france talk about they

the chief officer howard miller to bloomberg a little earlier. >> a strong summer with a strong q1, bute don't have a huge amount of bookings in place. it's difficult to predict. difficult timea last year. of capacity as we increase our schedules. >> are you being conservative? >> that is our style. >> it's probably a little below their range. last year we had a difficult time. this is the airline business. you cannot read it with certainty, so we must be cautious. >> how worried must investors be after easy jet was hit quite hard? the capacity is expanding. we are unable to drive rices higher. we have to potentially lower them. do we feel we would be able to navigate? >> we have it radically lower. headyou have that kind of room and leading-edge it's certainly insee, the near future. >> presumably that is going to change. they are the friendliest airline. are very friendly. >> are you really aiming to be the friendliest? >> we had somewhat lost our way. we became rules obsessed. . i think it'sot >> they appropriate. view from ryanair. they were talking to us this morning. let's carry o

miller is retiring after serving for 40 years in the navy. the chain of command ceremony is by invitation only. >>> howard university also has a new president. the school announced that dr. wayne frederick will become the university's 17th. he has served as the university's interim head since october 2013. he earned a dual bs at age 22 and went on to enter a surgical residency at how water university hospital -- howard university hospital. he's been a frequent guest here wusa9. >>> virginia hospital center is hiring registered nurses. this can be a full or part-time position. no experience required. find out more at wusa9.com/dcjobs. >>> 6:34. we'd like to congratulate cindy siko of mechanicsville, maryland. she is our facebook fan of the day. she says my husband and i have been watching wusa9 for 30 years and it's the only local news we watch. cindy, we thank you very much for your loyalty and cindy and all this week's fans will win tickets to see cirque du soleil's amaluna show. you can become our next facebook fan of the day. it's easy. just go to our facebook page, fill out the form and be sure >>> 6:38. yellow alert out. we're expecting

miller's piece, many were fired earlier today. the main stream media has been late to the party in this latest middle east crisis. howard about it. howie, sorry if we hear anything, but how have the main stream immediamedia handled thi has it changed? >> some news outlets were aggressive from the beginning. cbs and "the new york times" covering the abduction and the killing of these israeli teenagers. nbc nightly news didn't report them until a day after everyone else. but it's been ramping up for the times. "the washington post," similar pattern. >> has this changed the focus of the way these tragedies are being reported? >> very much so. israel so quickly mounted military strikes against gaza that the spotlight shifted from the horrifying killings of these kids to the prime minister's retaliation. it's become a more visual story for television. you have the street clashes, you have the security video of palestinian teen being forced into a car and this video of the palestinian american cousin of the deceased kid being beaten by israeli police, casting israel in a more negative light. >> what else struck you about the