Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - Dollar Still In Firing Line Ahead Of U.S. Jobs Report

Source - http://www.reuters.com/
By - Sophie Knight and Ian Chua
Category - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

After falling as much as 3 percent to a seven-week trough of 95.90 yen on Thursday, the greenback was trading at 96.65. That was 0.4 percent lower than late U.S. levels, with dealers citing selling from Japanese exporters on concerns that it could take time for the dollar to recoup its losses.

Traders said while there was no concrete trigger for the vicious selloff in the greenback overnight, the move has helped flush out some long USD positions ahead of the non-farm payrolls report due at 1230 GMT (8.30 a.m. EDT).

Just last month, investors had turned bullish on the dollar on the belief that upbeat data would prompt the U.S. Federal Reserve to roll back its $85 billion per month bond-buying program.

However, some traders have cut their dollar-longs after recent data raised concerns that Friday's jobs data will disappoint.

"It appears that markets are positioning for a weaker number," said Barclays Capital analysts.

Barclays Capital is, however, forecasting a 175,000 rise in employment, above the 170,000 expected by economists polled by Reuters.

"We think that an outturn close to our forecast could lead to broad USD strength, especially versus low-carry currencies."

The dollar index .DXY remained sluggish on Thursday, dropping 0.1 percent to 81.637 after slumping 1.3 percent to three-month lows on Thursday.

Against the euro, the greenback steadied after losing 1.2 percent on Thursday to a three-month low of $1.3306. It was last at $1.3251, little changed from late New York levels.

Market participants said the euro's move was more driven by the dollar's weakness against the yen than the European Central Bank (ECB)'s widely expected decision to leave its benchmark rate at a record low 0.5 percent.

Indeed, the resurgence of the yen left the euro down 0.5 percent at 127.76 yen, close to the five-week low of 127.53 it plumbed on Thursday.

The recent rise in the yen threatens to undermine the Bank of Japan's stimulus efforts, which have weakened the Japanese currency, helping exporters' overseas revenues up.

"Japanese exporters weren't selling forwards outright before because they expected too much; they wanted to see a higher (dollar) level above 100, like 105," said the director of a research firm who asked not to be identified.

"But the Ministry of Finance don't care about the level so much. They talked it up to 95 and then it got to 100, he said, adding the ministry would happy enough if the dollar remained above 90.

Japanese government officials said they were concerned about the sharpness of the yen's move but did not express any overt worries about the level of the currency.

"We are watching these moves, but this is not about intervention and I don't think we have to respond immediately," Finance Minister Taro Aso told a news conference.

The yen gained 1.7 percent against the Australian dollar to 91.40, after rising as high as 91.20, a level not seen since January 9.

The Aussie also resumed its recent slide after the U.S. dollar's broad weakness plucked it off a 20-month low of $0.9435 on Thursday. It lost 0.7 percent compared to late U.S. levels to $0.9500, within reach of its 2011 trough of $0.9388.

Hotels In Northern California - U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records Of Verizon Calls

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - CHARLIE SAVAGE and EDWARD WYATT
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

 The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The order does not apply to the content of the communications.

Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It is not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers. The order prohibits its recipient from discussing its existence, and representatives of both Verizon and AT&T declined to comment Wednesday evening.

The four-page order was disclosed Wednesday evening by the newspaper The Guardian. Obama administration officials at the F.B.I. and the White House also declined to comment on it Wednesday evening, but did not deny the report, and a person familiar with the order confirmed its authenticity. “We will respond as soon as we can,” said Marci Green Miller, a National Security Agency spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

The order was sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that regulates domestic surveillance for national security purposes, including “tangible things” like a business’s customer records. The provision was expanded by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which Congress enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The order was marked “TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN,” referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration’s aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks.

The collection of call logs is set to expire in July unless the court extends it.

The collection of communications logs — or calling “metadata” — is believed to be a major component of the Bush administration’s program of surveillance that took place without court orders. The newly disclosed order raised the question of whether the government continued that type of information collection by bringing it under the Patriot Act.

The disclosure late Wednesday seemed likely to inspire further controversy over the scope of government surveillance. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration. “On what possible basis has the government refused to tell us that it believes that the law authorizes this kind of request?” she said.

For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it.

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

They added: “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

A spokesman for Senator Wyden did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the Verizon order.

The senators were angry because the Obama administration described Section 215 orders as being similar to a grand jury subpoena for obtaining business records, like a suspect’s hotel or credit card records, in the course of an ordinary criminal investigation. The senators said the secret interpretation of the law was nothing like that.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act made it easier to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain business records so long as they were merely deemed “relevant” to a national-security investigation.

The Justice Department has denied being misleading about the Patriot Act. Department officials have acknowledged since 2009 that a secret, sensitive intelligence program is based on the law and have insisted that their statements about the matter have been accurate.

The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011 for a report describing the government’s interpretation of its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But the Obama administration withheld the report, and a judge dismissed the case.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Samsung's Surprise Patent Win Could Block Apple iPhone 4 Sales In US

Source - http://www.guardian.co.uk/
By - Charles Arthur
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

Samsung has won a surprise victory in a patent battle with Apple that could see the iPhone 4 and 3G-capable iPad 2 banned from sale in the US.

The decision – over a patent deemed essential to conform with the 3G standards, which Samsung has pledged to license freely – will be appealed against by Apple, which said that it will have "no impact" on the availability of its products in the US.

The final judgment by the International Trade Commission, which only adjudicates on requests for import bans to the US, will intensify debate over the US patent system, which is seen as hobbling competition in some fields. It came just hours after Barack Obama pledged to shake up his country's patent litigation system, with reform of the ITC among its objectives.

The ITC decided that the provision of 3G mobile data links in the iPhone 4, released in 2010, and 3G-capable iPad 2, infringed US patent 7,706,348. It rejected Apple's contention that Samsung had failed to license the patent on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms, as is required for standards-essential patents (SEPs). The iPhone 5 and 4S, and iPads released in 2012, are unaffected by the decision.

Apple and Samsung have been fighting a war of attrition through the various patent courts in the US and around the world in which they have sought to ban and otherwise limit sales of each other's products in Europe, the US, Australia and Asia. The ITC decision is the most significant win for Samsung in the US after a series of losses and indeterminate rulings there.

The decision to allow Samsung's request for a ban is controversial, because the FTC in January demanded a consent order from Google in which it would pledge that its Motorola subsidiary would not seek sales bans against "willing licensees" of SEPs.

It will also focus attention on the ITC, which has been used by a number of companies including Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia and others to seek import bans over alleged patent infringement against rivals in the hugely valuable smartphone business. On Tuesday, Obama announced plans to overhaul many of the US's patent litigation systems, including "change the ITC standard for obtaining an injunction to better align it" with the tests applied in US federal courts. Those effectively preclude sales bans over SEPs on willing licensees.

In Europe, the antitrust arm of the European Commission has indicated it will take legal action, perhaps including fines, against Samsung for seeking sales bans over SEPs against Apple – the same scenario in which the ITC has backed Samsung. One of the ITC's commissioners dissented from Tuesday's ruling, citing "public interest grounds".

Normally, the owner of a patented technology can decide whether or not to license it, and what rate to charge for it. But with SEPs, the owner pledges to a standards body to offer it on FRAND terms to any licensee. The payment for such patents is usually small – perhaps amounting to a fraction of a penny per use – in return for widespread use. That allows other companies to build their products to an agreed standard. Systems such as the 3G and Wi-Fi wireless networking and the H.264 video encoding/decoding standards incorporate hundreds of patents, all of which are licensed under FRAND terms.

In its judgment, the ITC said that Samsung's FRAND declarations "do not preclude" a sales ban. However, that is at odds with the FTC and European Commission position over SEPs.

"We believe the ITC's final determination has confirmed Apple's history of free-riding on Samsung's technological innovations," Samsung said in a statement to the AllThingsD website. "Our decades of research and development in mobile technologies will continue, and we will continue to offer innovative products to consumers in the US."

Apple said it was "disappointed" with the decision and that it would appeal to a federal court. Its only other alternative to avoid the import ban would be to appeal directly to Obama.

"Samsung is using a strategy which has been rejected by courts and regulators around the world," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to AllThingsD. "They've admitted that it's against the interests of consumers in Europe and elsewhere, yet here in the US Samsung continues to try to block the sale of Apple products by using patents they agreed to license to anyone for a reasonable fee."

Apple has been seeking a US sales ban without success on a number of Samsung smartphones and tablets after it won a jury verdict and $1.05bn in damages against the South Korean company in a Californian court in August 2012. That case revolved around patents which Apple has not made part of a standard, and which it said Samsung knowingly infringed. The jury rejected counterclaims by Samsung that Apple had infringed a number of SEPs.

Lucy Koh, the judge in the case, has so far declined to allow that ban, and has ordered a retrial affecting about $400m of the damages award.

Attractions In Santa Clarita - Scientists Solve 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Mystery Of Life And Its Link To Meteorites

Source - http://thespacereporter.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Attractions In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Attractions In Santa Clarita

It seems life may have received a boost from asteroids smashing into the surface of Earth early in its life.

According to a newly published report produced by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of Washington, life-producing phosphorus may have landed on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, providing a boost to early life forms.

USF professor Matthew Pasek, who led the study, says the phosphorus, when released in water, may have over time incorporated themselves into prebiotic molecules. The phosphorus, which has been found in asteroids, was likely carried to Earth via comets and meteorites, which released the element when impacted Earth.

By focusing on the Hadean and Archean eons of early Earth, the scientists were able to discern that meteorites delivered phosphorus in minerals currently not seen on the surface of Earth. By examining Earth core samples from Zimbabwe, Australia, Wyoming, West Virginia, Florida the team was able to determine the origin of the minerals. According to researchers, the minerals likely corroded in water, releasing large amounts of phosphorus in a form only found during Earth’s early formation. The phosphite would have likely resulted in an adjusting of the chemistry of Earth’s early oceans, with its chemical signature later becoming trapped in marine carbonate where it was preserved.

“The importance of this finding is that it provides the missing ingredient in the origin-of-life recipe: a form of phosphorus that can be readily incorporated into essential biological molecules,” said Roger Buick, a co-author of the study.

There are few natural sources of phosphite that are Earth-based. Some of the examples include lightning strikes, geothermal fluids  and possibly microbial activity under extremely anaerobic condition. However, none of the Earth-based forms could have produced the quantities of phosphite needed to be dissolved in early Earth oceans that gave rise to life, according to researchers.

According to the report, the conditions that led to a boom of life on Earth no longer exist and the elements delivered by asteroids are few and far between. Previous research has already confirmed that before the emergence of DNA-RNA-protein life , the earliest forms  of life on Earth evolved by relying on RNA alone. While the evolution of early life is fairly well understood, it remained unclear how early RNA–based life forms synthesized environmental phosphorus, which in its current form is relatively insoluble and unreactive.

This is not the first study to propose how life may have evolve from elements delivered to Earth via asteroids and comets. A number of scientists have examined and noted the abundance of reactive phosphorus in the form of the mineral schreibersite, a iron–nickel phosphide.

The report is published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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.

Meeting Space Santa Clarita - U.S. Drops Plan On Screening Of Statue Visitors

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - PATRICK McGEEHAN
Category - Meeting Space Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

 

Meeting Space Santa Clarita

In the staredown at New York City Hall over the Statue of Liberty, the National Park Service blinked.

 The Park Service had planned to have visitors screened on Ellis Island, rather than in Manhattan, when the statue reopens on July 4. But Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, has been objecting to that move for more than two years.

Mr. Kelly wanted the security operation to remain on the promenade in Battery Park, where it had been since the statue and Ellis Island reopened to visitors after the Sept. 11 attacks. The New York Police Department was uncomfortable with allowing tourists to board ferries to the statue without first being checked for weapons and explosives.

On Monday, Sally Jewell, the secretary of the interior, notified Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of the decision. She said the Park Service would erect a temporary screening center containing X-ray machines and magnetometers in Battery Park, but might have to leave it there for several years before a permanent solution could be devised.

The location of the screening post has long been a source of controversy. The Battery Conservancy, the organization that operates Battery Park, has tried for years to have it removed. But that did not happen until Hurricane Sandy swamped the security tent in October, ruined the equipment it housed and forced the closing of the statue.

In a letter on Monday, Secretary Jewell asked Mr. Bloomberg to provide a letter rescinding a 2010 request he made to the Park Service to vacate Battery Park. Mr. Bloomberg agreed. “It’s the right decision and an example of government agencies working together to achieve practical solutions,” he said in a statement.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, who also opposed moving the screening, said, “This solution wisely avoids any trade-off between speed-of-opening and optimum security.”

He added that the statue was vital to New York’s maintaining its pre-eminence “as the tourist capital of America,” and said that with the Park Service’s announcement, “it can continue to safely draw people from around the world.”

Accommodation In Santa Clarita - Oil Prices Decline After Weak China Data

Source - http://www.marketwatch.com/
By - Carla Mozee
Category - Accommodation In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Accommodation In Santa Clarita

Crude for July delivery CLN3 -0.30%  fell 16 cents, or 0.2%, to $91.81 a barrel, with some pressure on the dollar-denominated commodity coming from strengthening U.S. dollar.

The ICE dollar index DXY -0.11%  , which measures the greenback against six other global currencies, rose to 83.237 from 82.294 on Friday. The index finished May higher by nearly 2%.

 On Monday, the final version of HSBC’s China manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index showed activity in the sector contracted in May. The index fell to 49.2 from a preliminary reading of 49.6. The latest reading was also more than a point off from April’s 50.4. A result below 50 signals contraction.

China is a key consumer of oil, and the reported contraction in the country’s manufacturing sector came at a time of general concern about a slowdown in China and its impact on energy demand.

HSBC’s report contrasted with China’s official PMI, released Saturday, which rose to 50.8 in May from 50.6 in April.

Monday’s slip in oil prices added to the 1.8% drop on Friday, when news about record-high European unemployment and a decline in U.S. consumer spending in April dented energy-demand prospects.

The oil market later Monday is due to receive May PMI reports for Germany, France, Italy, and the overall euro zone.

Ahead of the reports, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Monday that the euro area’s economic situation “remains challenging,” and the ECB doesn’t expect much of an improvement before the end of this year.

 The ECB on Thursday is expected to yet again downwardly revise its economic-activity forecast for this year. It currently expects a contraction of 0.5%.

But industry and investor worries about lackluster energy demand didn’t sway OPEC on Friday from sticking to its current oil-production target.

OPEC oil ministers at a summit in Vienna agreed, as expected, to keep the output target at 30 million barrels a day for the rest of the year, with many members expressing satisfaction with current price levels of about $100 a barrel for Brent crude.

But OPEC’s current target “has no teeth because there are no individual country allocations within the quota,” Simmons & Company International head of research Jeff Dietert wrote Friday. “Our view is that all nations, aside from Saudi Arabia, are essentially producing at max capacity anyway.”

July futures for benchmark Brent crude oil UK:LCON3 -0.36%  on Monday fell 16 cents, or 0.2%, to $100.23 a barrel. Brent ended May with a loss of 1.6%.