NEW YORK (AP) — Ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe that the Internet threatens their way of life have rented the New York Mets‘ stadium for an unprecedented gathering on how to use modern technology in a religiously appropriate way.

More than 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men plan to pack Citi Field for Sunday’s gathering on the dangers of the Internet, and organizers have also rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd.

“It’s going to be inspiration and education about using technology responsibly in accordance with Jewish values,” said Eytan Kobre, a lawyer who is the spokesman for the event’s organizers.

Kobre said the rally’s purpose is not to ban the Internet but to learn how to harness it.

“There is a very significant downside to the Internet,” he said. “It does pose a challenge to us in various aspects of our lives.”

He cited online pornography and gambling as well as the risk of social media undermining “our ability to pray uninterruptedly, to focus and to concentrate.”

The rally is being organized by a rabbinical group called Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, which means Union of Communities for the Purity of the Camp. Published reports have put the cost at $1.5 million. Kobre would not confirm that amount, and he said the funders prefer to remain anonymous.

Spokesmen for the Mets and for the U.S. Tennis Association did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking information about what the rally organizers were paying to rent the stadiums.

Women will not be permitted at either stadium but the rally will be broadcast live to audiences of women in schools and event halls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Kobre said live hookups are also being arranged elsewhere in the U.S. and internationally.

The organizers are leaders of ultra-Orthodox sects that reject many aspects of modern life. Women dress modestly and wear wigs after marriage, while men wear black hats and long beards. Children are educated in Jewish schools, and Yiddish is the first language for many.

Television is banned or discouraged, but Kobre said many ultra-Orthodox Jews use the Internet either on computers or smartphones. “There’s a spectrum of usage and there’s a spectrum of how people are dealing with it,” he said.

Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College who has written widely about ultra-Orthodox Jews, said community leaders are worried about “seepage of the outside world into their enclaves.”

“The problem of course is that they can’t keep it out because the Internet has become ubiquitous and also important for them,” he said.

Heilman said many ultra-Orthodox Jews use the Internet for online trading or to run businesses from their homes.

But the “seemingly innocuous device of a telephone or a computer” provides an opening to the outside world that the ultra-Orthodox have long shunned, Heilman said.

“They think that that world is so seductive and so dangerous and so base, that that’s the greatest danger,” he said.

The lineup for Sunday’s rally has not been announced. Kobre said prominent rabbis will speak in Yiddish and in English, with the Yiddish portions translated into English on Citi Field’s big screen.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock futures are higher with the government reporting that weekly jobless claims edged downward last week, suggesting that employers may accelerate hiring this month.

Weekly applications dropped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 in the week ending May 5, the Labor Department said Thursday. The previous week’s figure was revised up slightly.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 48 points to 12,843. The Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 9.8 points to 1,360.8. The Nasdaq composite index rose 11.5 points to 2,630.75.

The four-week average for jobless claims, which economists use for a less volatile peek at the employment picture, fell 5,250 to 379,000. When that figure remains consistently below 375,000, it suggests that job growth is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

The numbers released by the Labor Department could dispel nascent fears that that strongest yearly start for hiring since the recession ended 2009 was sputtering.

Applications for unemployment benefits rose for most of last month in tandem with weaker hiring in March and April.

There are still signs, however, that companies are still digging out from the recession and a solid hiring environment has yet to take root.

Late Wednesday, a giant in the technology sector spooked the market with a sobering outlook on spending, particularly with Europe weighing on any global recovery.

Cisco Systems Inc. posted strong third-quarter profits, but shares tumbled 8 percent in premarket trading Thursday on dour comments about the willingness of corporations to make substantial investments.

CEO John Chambers said customers are waiting longer to close deals and they are spending less out of uncertainty about the economy, particularly in Europe and India.

“We are still in an uncertain environment economically,” Chambers told analysts in a conference call.

As talks to form a Greek government dragged into a fourth day, European markets fell.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares slipped 0.5 percent to 5,501 while Germany’s DAX fell 0.2 percent at 6,461. The CAC-40 in France was 1.2 percent lower at 3,081.

In the U.S., Kohl’s Corp. said Thursday that first-quarter profit tumbled 23 percent and the department store chain warned that it may fall short of Wall Street expectations in the second quarter.

The report comes a day after Macy’s reported first-quarter earnings. While first-quarter profit rose 38 percent, Macy’s shares tumbled after the department store left its guidance unchanged.

Though the company tends to give conservative guidance, investors took it as a sign of a potential slowdown in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

NEW YORK (AP) — Comcast Corp., the country’s largest cable company, reported a 30 percent profit increase in the first quarter, beating expectations on the strength of Super Bowl advertising and its popular broadband service.

The Philadelphia-based cable company said Wednesday that its net income rose to $1.224 billion, or 45 cents per share, for the January to March period from $943 million, or 34 cents per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of 42 cents per share for the latest quarter

Revenue rose to $14.9 billion, above analysts’ expectation of $14.4 billion. The increase was 9.6 percent compared with the combined cable and NBC Universal results a year ago.

Comcast’s acquisition of a majority stake in NBC Universal, which owns TV channels and movie studios, closed at the end of January last year.

NBC Universal’s results shone in the quarter. It accounts for a third of Comcast’s revenue, but grew much faster, at 18 percent from last year. Revenue at the NBC broadcast network grew 37 percent thanks to the Super Bowl. Fox broadcast it last year.

Excluding the Super Bowl, NBC‘s revenue grew 17 percent, helped by improving prime-time ratings and shows like “The Voice” and “Smash.”

At Universal Studios, revenue grew 22 percent on the theatrical success of “Dr. Seuss‘ The Lorax” and “Safe House.”

Comcast’s more predictable cable business revenue grew at lower pace — 5.7 percent from last year.

CEO Brian Roberts has suggested that Comcast might be able to reverse the long-standing industry-wide trend of cable-TV subscribers cancelling in favor of satellite and phone-company TV services, but that prospect was not in evidence in the first quarter: Comcast lost 37,000 cable subscribers, roughly the same number it lost in the same quarter last year.

“We believe we can continue to make steady progress” in retaining video subscribers, Roberts told analysts on a conference call Wednesday. As one of the improvements the company is making, he mentioned Streampix, a Netflix-like Internet video service that Comcast launched in February, only for its video customers. “A couple of million” of customers have access to it, he said.

Comcast added 439,000 Internet subscribers. That was the best quarterly result in four years. Meanwhile other cable companies report a slowdown in the recruitment of new subscribers, since most households already have broadband. Comcast appears to be gaining subscribers from households with slower phone-company “DSL” broadband.

Comcast shares fell 83 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $29.77 in morning trading Wednesday. On Tuesday, the shares hit $30.88, the highest price in 12 years.

NEW YORK (AP) — Usain Bolt could be defending his Olympic 200-meter title on a Thursday afternoon in the United States.

Fans will be able to watch the race live online for the first time during this summer’s London Games, but what they’ll see is very different from the tape-delayed, prime-time package that will still air a few hours later.

NBC executives decided to shift from their longtime philosophy and make every event available as it happens, convinced that the plan will build interest in the Olympics and not siphon off viewership from the traditional nightly broadcasts. That means the Internet streams will be fairly minimalistic, a move aimed at tempting fans to re-watch the competition in a more stylized presentation on the network that evening.

“You’ll be able to live the moment,” said Rick Cordella, the vice president and general manager for NBC Sports Digital.

The online coverage will use the world feed instead of NBC camera angles. That’s what viewers in many smaller countries see on their local networks, so the production is high quality, if less specialized than Americans are used to for the Olympics. There will be basic graphics and, for some popular sports, announcers from the Olympic Broadcasting Services.

Cordella said he didn’t know yet which commentators would call high-profile events like track, swimming and gymnastics for the OBS.

And if Bolt wins in another world record, fans will have to wait until prime time to see a post-race interview.

“It’s not infringing upon prime time,” Cordella said.

NBCOlympics.com streamed many smaller sports live during the 2008 Beijing Olympics for a total of 2,200 hours, but the big-ticket events were held back. This year, more than 3,500 hours will be shown on the website. For the top sports, replays will not be available online until after the event airs in prime time.

The service will include extra feeds for certain sports — fans can watch each apparatus in its entirety during gymnastics and up to five courts for tennis.

Most of the Internet streams will be available only to viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite services. They will need to “authenticate,” log in to prove they are customers. The “TV Everywhere” model has become popular with many networks as a way to allow viewers to watch programs on multiple devices while encouraging them to stick with cable and satellite providers. Cordella said he believed viewers were becoming more familiar with the process.

Social media has proliferated since Beijing, and NBC is counting on buzz from viewers who watch events live to attract others to the prime-time broadcasts.

“If Bolt sets a record and prances over the finish line,” Cordella said, “you want to see that.”

___

NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.

NEW YORK (AP) — Usain Bolt could be defending his Olympic 200-meter title on a Thursday afternoon in the United States.

Fans will be able to watch the race live online for the first time during this summer’s London Games, but what they’ll see is very different from the tape-delayed, prime-time package that will still air a few hours later.

NBC executives decided to shift from their longtime philosophy and make every event available as it happens, convinced that the plan will build interest in the Olympics and not siphon off viewership from the traditional nightly broadcasts. That means the Internet streams will be fairly minimalistic, a move aimed at tempting fans to re-watch the competition in a more stylized presentation on the network that evening.

“You’ll be able to live the moment,” said Rick Cordella, the vice president and general manager for NBC Sports Digital.

The online coverage will use the world feed instead of NBC camera angles. That’s what viewers in many smaller countries see on their local networks, so the production is high quality, if less specialized than Americans are used to for the Olympics. There will be basic graphics and, for some popular sports, announcers from the Olympic Broadcasting Services.

Cordella said he didn’t know yet which commentators would call high-profile events like track, swimming and gymnastics for the OBS.

And if Bolt wins in another world record, fans will have to wait until prime time to see a post-race interview.

“It’s not infringing upon prime time,” Cordella said.

NBCOlympics.com streamed many smaller sports live during the 2008 Beijing Olympics for a total of 2,200 hours, but the big-ticket events were held back. This year, more than 3,500 hours will be shown on the website. For the top sports, replays will not be available online until after the event airs in prime time.

The service will include extra feeds for certain sports — fans can watch each apparatus in its entirety during gymnastics and up to five courts for tennis.

Most of the Internet streams will be available only to viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite services. They will need to “authenticate,” log in to prove they are customers. The “TV Everywhere” model has become popular with many networks as a way to allow viewers to watch programs on multiple devices while encouraging them to stick with cable and satellite providers. Cordella said he believed viewers were becoming more familiar with the process.

Social media has proliferated since Beijing, and NBC is counting on buzz from viewers who watch events live to attract others to the prime-time broadcasts.

“If Bolt sets a record and prances over the finish line,” Cordella said, “you want to see that.”

___

NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.