Hotel In California - 7 Signs Your Child Is An iPad Addict

Source      - http://news.yahoo.com/
By             - Tia Ghose
Category   - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Withdrawal symptoms and cravings may seem like the province of hard-drug addiction, but increasingly, psychologists are noticing these same signs of addiction in people who use devices ranging from smartphones to tablets.

And as more and more households get iPads, more children may start to get hooked.  In April, reporters pounced on a story about a 4-year-old who was seeing a therapist to kick her iPad obsession.

Though diagnosing a 4-year-old may be a stretch, "with what we're learning about addictions, it is fair to say that somebody can become addicted to an iPad," said Oren Amitay, a psychologist in Toronto.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V), sometimes called the psychiatrist's "bible," has not officially added Internet gaming to its roster of disorders, but it's under consideration. And it's likely that iPad, smartphone or other device addiction will be viewed similarly as more data show their harmful effects, Amitay said. 

From physical withdrawal symptoms to losing touch with the outside world, here are seven signs your child may be hooked on the iPad.

1. Withdrawal

Withdrawal from heroin or alcohol causes headaches and the shakes, but device addiction has physical withdrawal symptoms as well. In a 2011 study, researchers asked 1,000 college students around the world to go 24 hours without using their smartphones, other mobile devices or the Internet. Many reported symptoms such as anxiety and depression, and one anonymous student even said he or she was "itching like a crackhead" from the longing to use a phone.

If your child is irritable, anxious or sad after having the iPad is taken away, he or she may have an unhealthy attachment to the device.

2. Tolerance

Just as heroin addicts need bigger and bigger hits to get the same effect, iPad users can also develop a tolerance.

"Kids might have enjoyed it for 10 minutes, now they need it for an hour or two hours or three," Amitay said.

If playing 20 minutes of Math Ninja or Subway Surfer is no longer enough to make a kid happy, that may also be a sign of addiction.

3. Loss of interest

If children who once loved playing soccer, picking on their kid brother, or climbing trees have lost interest in all those activities in favor of hours of "Air Hockey Gold," it may signal a problem. (An occasional preference for the iPad over other activities isn't a problem; the screen craving has to be crowding out everything else to a significant degree.)

4. Lack of control

Addicts typically have an inability to control their usage. And though 4-year-olds are not known for their self-control, children may have a problem if parents have a really hard time taking the tablet away from their child without a huge meltdown.

On the other hand, parents of young children should be able to set limits, and a young child throwing a temper tantrum is not a sign of addiction on its own, Amitay said.

5. Deception

Have you caught Henry hiding underneath the kitchen table hunched over a lit-up screen, playing his favorite game? Yes, another red flag of addiction is children lying about iPad use, sneaking the iPad into their bedroom or other hideout, or otherwise deceiving family members to get more screen time.

6. Trouble dealing

Addicts often use a substance or an activity as a way of escaping from a negative mood or feeling.

"Whether it's sex, drugs or gambling, it's about other feelings that they can't control," Amitay said.

Kids who are using the iPad to avoid dealing with sad, stressful, or negative emotions could have a problem. For instance, if your kid always grabs the iPad after a fight with a sibling or a parent, he may be coping with his negative emotions using the iPad.

7. Losing opportunities

Losing significant relationships, failing in school, or performing poorly at work are all signs of addiction. Though young children have probably not lost their shot at the corner office as a result of too much Candy Crush Saga, they may be losing friends or their grades may be slipping.

"The idea is that the child is detaching from the world around them," Amitay said.

Normal or not?

For all these symptoms, it's important to note that mentally healthy children, especially young children, become slightly obsessive about any new activity.

"When a child s learning to master their environment, or trying to get good at something, it's okay for them to spend a lot of time on it," Amitay said.

In young children especially, most symptoms of iPad addiction can be short-circuited early on if parents set limits, create consequences for excessive use and provide daily structure for their children. The fact that parents have trouble taking an iPad away from a 3-year-old doesn't necessarily mean they have a toddler addict; it means the parent have trouble saying no, Amitay said.

"If parents can't intervene with a 3-year-old, good luck with a teen," he said.

Hotel In California - Tackling Fears 'While You Sleep'

Source     - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By            - Caroline Parkinson
Category  - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

US researchers suggest smells could be used to calm fears - while people sleep.

People were trained to associate two images, linked to smells, with fear.

During sleep they were exposed to one of those smells - and when they woke they were less frightened of the image linked to that smell.

A UK expert praised the Nature Neuroscience study and said it could help treat phobias and perhaps even post-traumatic stress disorders.

People with phobias are already commonly treated with "gradual exposure" therapy while they are awake, where they are exposed to the thing they are frightened of in incremental degrees.

This study suggests that the theory could be extended to therapy while they are in slow-wave, or deep, sleep.

This is the deepest period of sleep, where memories, particularly those linked to emotions, are thought to be processed.

Brain changes

The researchers showed 15 healthy people pictures of two different faces.

At the same time they were given a mild electric shock. They were also exposed to a specific smell, such as lemon, mint, new trainers, clove or wood.

They were then taken into a sleep lab. While they were in slow-wave sleep they were exposed to a smell linked to one of the faces they had been shown.

Later, when they were awake, they were shown both faces - without the scents or shocks.

They showed less fear when shown the face linked to the scent they had smelt while asleep than when shown the other face.

Their response was measured through the amount of sweat on the skin and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans.

These showed changes in the areas linked to memory, such as the hippocampus, and in patterns of brain activity in regions associated with emotion, such as the amygdala. 

People were in slow-wave sleep for between five and 40 minutes, and the effect was strongest for those who slept for longest.

'Just one day'

Dr Katherina Hauner, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, who led the study, said: "It's a novel finding. We showed a small but significant decrease in fear. 

"If it can be extended to pre-existing fear, the bigger picture is that, perhaps, the treatment of phobias can be enhanced during sleep." 

She said phobias would be the most obvious area to pursue, as cues tended to be relatively simple, compared with the more complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

And she said much more research was needed to fully understand the effects this therapy could have.

"This was just one day. We really need to see if it can last weeks, months or years."

'Triggers include smells'

 

Jennifer Wild, consultant clinical psychologist at the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, said: "The sleep study is excellent and has implications for treating phobias and stress disorders, such as post-traumatic stress, where there are a whole range of cues. 

"Many people who have survived traumatic events, such as fires or road traffic accidents, have a physiological fear response to triggers of their memories. 

"Triggers often include smells, such as smoke, petrol, antiseptic smells and alcohol. Infusing these smells during periods of slow-wave sleep could help to extinguish the fear response."

Dr Wild added that the theory could perhaps be extended by exposing people to subtle sounds linked to phobias or traumatic memories during their sleep.

Hotel In California - Japan To Launch Internet ‘Fasting Camps’ For Half a Million Web-Addicted Students

Source       - http://www.foxnews.com/
By              - Trevor Mogg
Category    - Hotel In California
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Do you spend way too much time online? Do you logon first thing when you wake up? Take your smartphone to the bathroom to check your messages? Surf the Web while you’re driving? Go online when you should be working? Check Twitter and Facebook last thing at night? Sweat when you get separated from your smartphone? Retch when your Internet connection drops? What? You do? Jeez, sounds like you have a real problem there, although you’re not the only one.

According to the Japanese government, more than half a million of the nation’s children aged between 12 and 18 are addicted to the Internet and in need of help.

In an effort to deal with the issue, the Education Ministry said from next year it’ll offer addicted students the chance to attend so-called Internet ‘fasting camps’, a disconnected world free from computers, smartphones, tablets, and any other Net-connecting devices.

Are your hands getting clammy at the mere thought of such a place?

518,000 addicted students
A Daily Yomiuri report Tuesday said that around 518,000 students in Japan are addicted to the Web. The discovery was first reported earlier this month after the publication of research results by the Health Ministry.

The ministry said there was evidence that the addiction was having a negative impact on not only their performance at school but also their health, with sleep and nutritional disorders, as well as depression, reported. Even deep vein thrombosis gets a mention.

While centers for Internet addiction already exist in many countries, Japan, one of the most connected nations on the planet, currently has few places specializing in treatment for those considered to be Web addicts.

Reconnecting
The government intends to use existing facilities such as youth outdoor learning centers for its Internet fasting camps, a place where, over a number of days, students will be slowly and gently encouraged to reconnect with the real world.

Special counseling sessions will be offered by trained psychologists, and lectures about outdoor activities without a smartphone will be given by experts.

Last month, DT’s Jam Kotenko investigated the subject of Net addiction in a piece which included a look at Digital Detox, a personal wellness retreat organization in Ukiah, California, where participants have to hand over their gadgets and gizmos in exchange for a week in the wilderness.

Hotel In California - Back Pain: Doctors Increasingly Ignore Clinical Guidelines

Source - http://www.latimes.com/
By - Monte Morin
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Doctors have increasingly ignored clinical guidelines for the treatment of routine back pain by prescribing powerful and addictive narcotics instead of other recommended painkillers and by recommending unwarranted diagnostic imagery, according to a new study.

Researchers at Massachusetts' Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School based their conclusion on an examination of roughly 24,000 cases of spine problems in national databases from 1999 to 2010. Their findings appeared online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Well-established guidelines for routine back pain stress conservative management, including use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or acetaminophen and physical therapy," wrote lead author Dr. John Mafi and his colleagues.

Despite these guidelines, researchers found that doctors were doing much the opposite.

Although physical therapy referrals remained steady during the study period, prescriptions for narcotic painkillers jumped 51%. Simultaneously, prescriptions for non-opiate drugs had fallen by the same amount.

Study authors noted that a 2007 analysis found that narcotics provided little to no benefit in cases of acute back pain and that they had also failed to prove effective in cases of chronic back pain.

The jump in narcotic prescriptions therefore raised "significant concerns," the authors wrote, and may be linked to a larger national crisis involving prescription drug deaths.

"Although we lack adequate data to make firm recommendations on narcotic medications, which may be indicated in certain instances, such increases in narcotic prescriptions may be contributing to a current crisis in public health: The rapid increase in narcotic overdose deaths parallels a reported 300% increase in the U.S. sales of prescription narcotics since the 1990s."

Researchers also identified "an inappropriate increase" in the use of "low value" diagnostic imaging that could lead to future cancer in patients because of exposure to ionizing radiation.

While medical guidelines recommended that doctors avoid early imaging or other aggressive treatments, except in rare cases, researchers found that the use of computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) had increased by 57%. 

 

Researchers say that such scans have proved to be of little benefit to patients who lack "red-flag symptoms" and that overuse of the technology has been identified in previous studies as well.

"In 2007, a projected 1,200 additional future cancers were created by the 2.2 million lumbar CTs performed in the United States," the authors wrote.

The authors say that under established treatment guidelines, routine back pain will usually improve within 3 months.

However, referral rates to other doctors, presumably for surgery, had doubled during the study period. (Early MRI for acute back pain was associated with an eight-fold increased risk of surgery, researchers found.)

"The 106% increase in referrals to other physicians is a previously unrecognized and important finding because such referrals likely contributed to the recent increase in costly, morbid and often ineffective outpatient spine operations observed in other studies," the authors wrote.

Nationally, back and neck problems are responsible for more than 10% of all visits to primary care physicians and account for $86 billion in healthcare spending every year.

According to study authors, spending on these conditions has increased more rapidly than overall health expenditures from 1997 to 2005.

"With healthcare costs soaring, improvements in the management of back pain represent an area of potential cost savings for the healthcare system while also improving the quality of care," the authors concluded.

Hotel In California - Why Do Sandwiches Taste Better When Someone Else Makes Them?

Source - http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/
By - Jonathan Becher
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

At first blush, this explanation seems counter-intuitive. Studies have shown that picturing yourself eating a food you enjoy (perhaps chocolate) induces an increase in saliva and the desire to eat it.  Similarly, imagining the smell of a cigarette increases cravings in smokers.  So why doesn’t making a sandwich improve the taste?

Carnegie Mellon University researchers believe the answer lies in the fact that extended exposure to a stimulus (the sandwich) decreases the physiological and behavioral responses (wanting to eat it). In other words, seeing the sandwich get made over time makes it feel less novel and thus less desirable.  A similar phenomena works with repeated exposure to the same food: a fifth bite of chocolate is less desirable than the first.

In a series of five experiments, the CMU researchers showed the more often people imagined eating a food, the less likely they were to eat it later.  In addition, people who repeatedly imagined eating a specific food ate less of that food than people who repeatedly imagined eating a different food. According to the research, they ate less because they felt less hungry, not because they thought the food was less appetizing.

This is an extraordinary compelling idea. We will likely eat less if we make our own food and imagine eating it several times beforehand. Maybe we could call it the Daydream Diet.

Hotel In California - Bank Of America $8.5 Billion Mortgage Settlement Case Opens

Source - http://finance.yahoo.com/
By - Karen Freifeld
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) proposed $8.5 billion settlement with investors in mortgage securities that went bad during the financial crisis offers billions more than they are likely to get if they go to trial, a lawyer for the trustee who helped negotiate the deal argued Monday.

Matthew Ingber, a lawyer for Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee overseeing the securities, made the case for the deal as a long-awaiting proceeding for approval of the settlement got underway in state court in New York.

Bank of America agreed to the settlement in June 2011 to resolve the claims of investors in bonds issued by mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp, which Bank of America bought in 2008.

Twenty-two institutional investors, including BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), MetLife Inc (MET.N) and Allianz SE's (ALVG.DE) Pacific Investment Management Co entered into the settlement. American International Group Inc (AIG.N) and others have objected, saying the settlement offered them only a fraction of the money they lost.

Bank of New York Mellon, as the trustee, is asking a New York state court to approve the settlement and make it binding on all the investors.

In court on Monday, Ingber said Countrywide had a maximum of $4.8 billion in assets to pay a judgment on the claims. If the settlement is not approved, investors probably won't be able to hold Bank of America responsible for misrepresentations made by Countrywide on the quality of the underlying mortgages, he said.

"You may hear a lot from the objectors about what the trustee should have done or could have done or might have done," Ingber told Justice Barbara Kapnick, who must decide whether to approve the deal. "But, your honor, all those coulda, woulda, shoulda are irrelevant if the pot of gold isn't going to be there."

Opening arguments are set to continue on Tuesday, with Texas attorney Kathy Patrick making the case for the institutional investors who support the settlement.

The opponents are expected to argue that losses to the trusts might exceed $100 billion. They claim BNY Mellon placed its interests and those of Bank of America above those of bond holders. And they point out BNY Mellon gets trust business from Bank of America.

Colorado attorney Dan Reilly, who represents AIG, said last week the proposed deal "offers pennies on the dollar" to the bond holders.

A lawyer for the federal home loan banks of Boston, Indianapolis and Chicago is expected to join AIG in an opening statement on behalf of the objectors on Tuesday.

Ingber argued Monday that the trustee did not receive any money or a release of claims in the settlement agreement. He told Kapnick the questions she had to answer were whether the trustee entered into the deal in good faith and whether the settlement was reasonable.

"This was an easy call and it was done for all the right reasons," Ingber said. "Approval of this settlement is a win for all investors."

Kapnick has set aside the first two weeks of June to hear the case. She said that because of other cases, she will then recess until July.

Hotel In California - Microsoft Bringing Back the Start Button With Windows Blue

Source - http://www.pcmag.com/
By - Damon Poeter
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Microsoft is rumored to be building a new version of Windows 8 that will have an option to boot to the traditional Windows interface instead of the "Metro"-style Start Screen used in the current edition of the PC and tablet operating system.

The change, which users will have to switch on, is coming in Windows 8.1, also known as Windows Blue, according The Verge.

Blue is the follow-up to Windows 8, which was released last October, and will reportedly be released this year. Microsoft has publicly stated that it is tightening the release cycles for new versions of its flagship operating system and acknowledged in March that the company's employees are "working together on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as 'Blue.'"

However, the chances of the final product being called "Windows Blue" were "slim to none," Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft's corporate vice president of corporate communications, said at the time.

The Verge cited unnamed sources as saying Redmond was currently testing Windows Blue builds "that include an option to boot directly to the traditional desktop" with the "hot corner functionality, for access to the Charms and Start Screen [remaining] intact if the boot to desktop option is enabled."

As further evidence that Microsoft plans to revive its traditional Start Menu and Start button, The Verge pointed to "references to a 'CanSuppressStartScreen' option in early builds of the Windows 8.1 registry," as spotted on MyDigitalLife's forums.

The site's sources indicated that the current Windows 8 interface would remain the default one for an updated version of the OS, however, and that it's "highly unlikely" that Redmond would push out a traditional Windows look as anything but an extra option for users.

Microsoft's Metro-style interface built for Windows 8 has met with sharp criticism from some corners. The UI, optimized for PCs and mobile devices with touch screens, hasn't been well received by many Windows users who still depend on keyboard-and-mouse configurations.

Business and organizational Windows customers have been particular hostile to the UI change, perhaps Microsoft's most radical since introducing a graphical interface for the first time with 1985's release of the first Windows system shell on top of its MS-DOS operating system.

As to whether Microsoft is really planning to revive its traditional UI as an option for Windows 8 holdouts, there's some recent history that suggests the software giant is capable of backtracking at times to placate vocal Windows users. The Windows Aero visuals incorporated in 2007's Windows Vista release were derided by many Windows users as nothing but resource-hogging eye candy—and were subsequently downplayed in Windows 7, released in 2009.

For more, check out What Is Windows Blue?, Beware of Windows Blue, and Microsoft Readying RT Version of Windows Blue.

Hotel In California - Almost 20% Of Teen Births Are Not a First Child

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Sharon Jayson
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Nearly one in five births to U.S. teens ages 15-19 is not a first child, says a federal report out today.

Of the 365,000 teens who gave birth in 2010, almost 67,000 (18.3%) have had at least one child before, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's down from 19.5% in 2007. Most were the teen mom's second child (86%).

But more teen moms are using birth control, the report says -- almost 91% used some form of contraception after having had a baby. But just 22% of those used contraceptive methods considered to be "most effective" -- tubal ligation, vasectomy, hormonal implant or intrauterine device (IUD). With those, the report says, the risk of becoming pregnant is less than one pregnancy in 100 users a year. The pill, injectables, the patch and the ring are considered "moderately effective."

"The trend is definitely up both on birth control generally and using the most effective forms of birth control, which we call LARC (long-acting reversible contraception)," says CDC Director Tom Frieden. "What that's telling us is nearly all teen moms want to avoid pregnancy and are taking steps to avoid a repeat pregnancy. But the challenge is only one in five are using the most effective means of doing that."

More than three quarters of sexually active teen mothers used one of the "most" or "moderately effective" contraceptive methods after having a baby; they were more likely than other sexually active teens to use a long-acting method (21.5% vs. 4.5%), the report finds.

"Just having one teen birth is a challenge but having a second can just compound things," says Jennifer Manlove, a senior research scientist who has studied repeat births for the nonprofit Child Trends, based in Bethesda, Md. She was not involved in the CDC's report.

The highest percentages of repeat teen births were among American Indian/Alaska natives (21.6%), Hispanics (20.9%), and blacks (20.4%). The lowest percentage was among whites (14.8%). Texas had the highest percentage of any state (22%) and New Hampshire had the lowest (10%).

In eight states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Texas -- 20% of all teen births were repeats. In seven states -- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Wyoming -- less than 15% were repeats.

Manlove says as recently as 1990, 25% of teen births were repeat births. "We have seen a steady gradual decline," she says. "Maybe these long-acting methods are the way to go to reduce repeat teen births in the future."

The CDC report notes that "teens are at a high risk for inconsistent use of methods that are user-dependent (e.g., condoms and oral contraceptive pills)," and that "LARC methods might be a suitable option" since they don't require daily monitoring.

But the report says teens "face a number of barriers to LARC use, including cost, limited availability, lack of provider acceptance for this practice in teens, and teen lack of awareness of these methods."

Hotel In California - Obama To Nominate Justice Aide For Labor Post

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/

By - PETER BAKER

Category - Hotel In California

Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

WASHINGTON – President Obama plans to announce Monday that he will nominate Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to be the next secretary of labor, a choice that promises to provoke a debate with Republicans about voting rights and discrimination.

Mr. Perez would replace Hilda L. Solis, who stepped down in January after four years running the Labor Department. Word of his possible selection has been circulating in Washington for days, and a White House official informed reporters that the president would make it official on Monday.

The announcement comes just days after a Justice Department inspector general’s report found that the voting rights section has been torn by “deep ideological polarization” with liberal and conservative factions in sharp conflict. The divisions date back to the George W. Bush administration, and most occurred before Mr. Perez was confirmed in October 2009. He portrayed the report as largely clearing the section on his watch.

But the report also raised questions about testimony he gave, and Republicans made clear that they would take issue with his handling of some cases over the last three and a half years. His critics question, for example, whether he acted inappropriately in persuading the City of St. Paul to drop a lawsuit seeking to limit fair housing claims when there is no intentional bias.

Liberals and labor leaders have hailed Mr. Perez, calling him a strong champion for workers and those who have faced discrimination. While at the Justice Department, he has pursued a record number of discrimination or brutality claims against local police and sheriff’s departments, including that of Joe Arpaio, the outspoken sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., who was accused of “a pattern of unlawful discrimination” against Latinos.

Mr. Perez also challenged voter identification requirements imposed by South Carolina and Texas, and his division reached the three largest residential fair lending settlements in the history of the Fair Housing Act. Under him, the voting section participated in the most new litigation in the last fiscal year than in any previous year.

Mr. Perez, 51, who would be the only Hispanic in the cabinet if confirmed, is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. His father died when he was 12, but his family pressed the value of education so much that all four of his siblings became doctors. Mr. Perez graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.

He has spent a career fighting discrimination cases as a federal prosecutor, then, under President Bill Clinton, as deputy chief of the civil rights division that he now heads, and finally as head of civil rights enforcement at the Health and Human Services Department. He also served as an elected council member in Montgomery County, Md., and as the state’s secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.

The timing of the inspector general’s report on the voting section seems to ensure that it will come up during Mr. Perez’s confirmation hearings. The report found a toxic environment in which conservatives and liberals fought and maligned one another through the Bush administration and into the Obama administration.

The examples it cited generally preceded Mr. Perez, and he wrote the inspector general that he had made a point of correcting the situation. “Since 2009, the Civil Rights Division and the Voting Section have undertaken a number of steps to improve the professionalism of our workplace and to ensure that we enforce the civil rights laws in an independent, evenhanded fashion,” Mr. Perez wrote.

The inspector general, however, raised questions regarding Mr. Perez’s testimony about a case that preceded his time. Mr. Perez told the Civil Rights Commission in 2010 that no senior department officials were involved in a 2009 decision not to pursue further a case of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers. But the report noted that in fact senior officials did participate in discussions about the case, although the final decision was made by career lawyers as Mr. Perez had testified.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said the report showed that Mr. Perez was “woefully unprepared to answer questions” about a matter that he expected to be asked about. “This is troubling as it suggests a failure to also prepare for hearings before Congress, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, when questioned on this same topic,” he said in a statement.

Hotel In California - ICC World Cup 2015 Chairman James Strong Dies

Source - http://sports.ndtv.com/

By - Agence France-Presse

Category - Hotel In California

Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Prominent Australian businessman James Strong, the chairman of the organising committee for the 2015 cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, has died aged 68.

The former Qantas chief executive passed away in Sydney on Sunday after complications following surgery, his family said on Monday.

The ICC World Cup organising committee said it was saddened.

"James possessed a passion and vision for the tournament that set the tone for the entire organisation," the committee said in a statement.

ICC World Cup chief executive John Harnden, who worked with Strong for almost 20 years, praised his contribution to corporate and sporting life in Australia and New Zealand.

"We will continue the work he began on the World Cup and deliver a tournament in 2015 that would make him proud," he said.

Harnden said a statement regarding Strong's successor would be made in due course. The World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand from February to March in 2015.

Strong was the chief executive and managing director of Australian airline Qantas between 1993 and 2001.

He was also a chairman of V8 Supercars and Kathmandu Holdings, and a former chairman of the Insurance Australia Group and Woolworths.

Australian Formula One driver Mark Webber said Strong would be missed.

"Sorry to hear the news that James Strong has passed away. He was very special towards my junior racing career. Great guy. Will be missed," Webber wrote on Twitter.

Hotel In California - Hotels Take Fitness Amenities To The Great Outdoors

Source - http://news.yahoo.com/
By - Dorene Internicola
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

NEW YORK (Reuters) - From sightseeing city runs and nature hikes down country trails to surfing sessions, hotels are luring leisure and business clients outside their climate-controlled rooms for outdoor activities to keep fit while traveling for business or pleasure.

Morning runs, afternoon power walks and bicycle rides are fast becoming standard fare for hotels in urban centers, with the cityscape dictating the route.

"Since most of our hotels are urban, we like our guests to get outside in the neighborhood," said Mike DeFrino, executive vice president of hotel operations at Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants.

In cities with a strong running population, he said, managers or assistant managers at the chain ofboutique hotels will lead the morning run.

Many U.S. hotels also offer bicycle borrowing, particularly in cities such as San Diego, California, and Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Studies have shown that exercising outdoors can offer advantages over indoor, gym-based fitness routines. British researchers found that natural environments may increase activity levels with less perceived exertion, reduce stress and improve mood.

The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, in California wine country, offers bike tours to local wineries, walking tours to local purveyors and a hike to a 2,000-year-old Redwood Tree, as well as treks of varying levels of difficulty and water yoga classes in thermal mineral pools.

"The hikes sell out almost every morning," said Michelle Heston of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which has 60 hotels around the globe.

Business travelers, who make up about half of Fairmont's clientele, work out to a schedule different from the tourist.

"The business traveler has different habits. Early 6 a.m. offerings are popular with them, those on holiday are much later," she said.

Jodi Sullivan, senior director, global fitness, at Hilton Worldwide, said both business and leisure travelers are increasingly aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

"We always want to take advantage of the great outdoors, said Sullivan, adding fitness activity at Hilton, depending on location, may include bike rentals and beach volleyball courts.

Sullivan, a personal trainer, said Hilton created its fitness program in 2006. For its bicycle program city route maps are printed on the backs of water bottles.

For people who prefer not to leave their hotel rooms at some Hilton hotels they can book a Yoga Room, with a king-size bed and a designated area to practice headstands and postures, or a Cardio Room, which comes with a cardio machine that simulates the workout of an elliptical, a treadmill and a bike.

Hotels routinely offer in-room, on-demand yoga and Pilates programming, and most have indoorfitness centers. Kimpton hotels also lend out hula hoops, resistance bands, hand weights and jump ropes.

"The business traveler is on a tighter schedule. They're less apt to use the planned activities and more apt to use the fitness center at 5:00 a.m.," DeFrino explained. "We encourage people who don't want to leave their room to order a yoga bag, and watch a one-hour yoga DVD on TV."

He added that the outdoor fitness activities are specific to the site. In La Jolla, California hotel clients can borrow a golf cart or surfboard and wetsuit.