Accommodation In Santa Clarita - Tax Bite Curbs U.S. Growth Along With Consumer Spending

Source - http://www.bloomberg.com/
By - Shobhana Chandra
Category - Accommodation In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Accommodation In Santa Clarita

Growth in the world’s largest economy was less than originally estimated in the first quarter as an increase in the U.S. payroll tax took a bigger bite out of consumer spending than previously calculated.

Gross domestic product grew at a 1.8 percent annualized rate from January through March, down from a prior reading of 2.4 percent, Commerce Department data showed today in Washington. Household purchases were trimmed to a 2.6 percent advance -- still the fastest in two years -- from the 3.4 percent gain estimated last month.

Americans cut back on services from vacations to legal advice as the two percentage-point increase in the payroll tax caused incomes to drop by the most in more than four years. At the same time, an improving labor market and rising home prices are underpinning consumer confidence, one reason economists project growth will pick up in the second half of the year.

“You’re not seeing a big pullback in consumer spending, it is just weaker than previously estimated,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “The housing recovery will continue to push forward. Overall growth is going to be stronger in the second half.”

Stocks and Treasury securities rallied on speculation the weaker-than-projected growth reading will prompt Federal Reserve policy makers to delay reducing bond purchases. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1 percent to 1,603.26 at the close in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell to 2.54 percent from 2.61 percent late yesterday.
Financial System

Elsewhere, the Bank of England today said lenders are vulnerable to an abrupt increase in long-term interest rates as it warned confidence in the financial system remains fragile. The central bank ordered a review of banks’ exposure to interest-rate risk, which it said is not properly understood.

The U.S. government’s GDP estimate is the third and final one for the quarter. The 0.6 percentage-point reduction was the biggest for a final reading of GDP since the figure for the third quarter of 2009, which was lowered by the same amount.

The median forecast of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 2.4 percent rise in first-quarter GDP, the same as the Commerce Department previously estimated. The economy grew at a 0.4 percent pace in the last three months of 2012.

The downward revision was centered in consumer spending on services, with the updated figures showing a 1.7 percent gain compared with a prior estimate of 3.1 percent. Outlays in the category that includes tourism, legal help and personal care items such as haircuts, dropped in the first quarter from the previous three months. Spending on health-care services grew at a slower pace than previously projected.

Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita - Big Weight Loss For Diabetics, But No Drop In Heart Risk

Source - http://www.upr.org/
By - Nancy Shute
Category - Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

HotelReservationsInSantaClarita

Hundreds of overweight or obese people with diabetes have been able to do something very few Americans have done: lose a big chunk of weight and keep it off for 10 years.

So should it matter if that epic weight loss didn't reduce the risk of heart disease? Maybe not.

That's one response to the results of the Look AHEAD clinical trial, which checked to see if losing weight reduced heart disease risk in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Maintaining a healthful weight is an important way to prevent and manage diabetes. It's also helps reduce heart disease risk. So the researchers were surprised to find that even though the study participants lost weight and kept it off, they didn't reduce their risk of heart attacks, stroke and chest pain.

Researchers at 16 institutions had organized a long-running clinical trial to measure the effect of weight loss, enrolling more than 5,000 obese or overweight people ages 45 to 75 with Type 2 diabetes. They averaged about 200 pounds.

Half of the group was assigned to an intensive lifestyle intervention that involved eating less — 1,200 to 1,800 calories a day — and putting in at least three hours of moderate exercise a week. They got counseling and attended meetings to help them stick with the program.

Those people lost an average of 8.6 percent of their body weight in the first year, which isn't easy to do. Most weight-loss studies can eke out only a few percentage points of change in that time.

The people in the control group, who didn't get the lifestyle help, lost almost 1 percent of body weight in the first year.

Both groups managed to avoid major backsliding, which typically happens with weight-loss trials. The intervention group gained some weight back in years two through five, but ended up with a 6 percent loss over 10 years. The control group lost weight gradually, and was down about 4 percent at the end. All told, 1,193 people stayed with the trial throughout.

Excess weight is considered a risk factor for both cardiovascular disease and diabetes, so the researchers figured they'd see improvements in both.

Instead, they had to stop the trial early, after almost 10 years, when it was clear that the people in the weight-loss group weren't getting any extra protection from heart attacks, strokes, or angina.

But the trial wasn't a failure, the the researchers say. It shows that people with diabetes "can lose weight and maintain that weight loss," lead author Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University, reported at the American Diabetes Association meeting in Chicago. The results were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The weight-loss group also had better glycemic control and lower systolic blood pressure, spent less money on medications, had less sleep apnea, and was more likely to have a partial remission of diabetes. They were less likely to land in the hospital. And they also felt better.

"This study in no way disproves the important of weight reduction and exercise," says Dr. Douglas Zipes, a distinguished professor emeritus at the Indiana University School of Medicine and past president of the American College of Cardiology. "There were significant benefits achieved."

The control group took more statins and other drugs to reduce cardiovascular risk, Zipes notes, which could have clouded the study's findings.

And he says that years of evidence showing that eating well and exercising reduce heart disease risk still stand. "We've been able to reduce mortality from heart disease by 60 percent over the past three decades," he said.

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - Weight Loss No Help For Heart In Diabetes

Source - http://www.medpagetoday.com/
By - Charlene Laino
Category - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

An intensive lifestyle intervention focusing on weight loss did not reduce the rate of cardiovascular events in overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes, according to final results of the randomized controlled Look AHEAD trial.

The study was halted in September on the basis of a futility analysis that showed no significant differences in the composite primary outcome of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for angina between those who had the intervention and those who only received support: 1.83 versus 1.92 events per 100 person-years, respectively (P=0.51).

Rena Wing, PhD, of Brown University, and colleagues reported their findings simultaneously online in the New England Journal of Medicine and at the American Diabetes Association meeting here.

Nonetheless, people in the intervention group benefited in terms of a host of other ways, Mary Evans, PhD, director of Look AHEAD at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, told The Gupta Guide.

"They sustained 6% weight loss over 10 years. They had clinically meaningful improvements in glycated hemoglobin levels and less diabetes and less retinopathy. There were also improvements in quality of life and reduction in depression," she said.

Evans said explanations for the lack of benefit among people in the intervention group include greater use of medications in the control group. "The drugs, particularly statins, could have lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease.

"Or perhaps people in the intervention group didn't achieve enough weight loss," she said.

The Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) trial enrolled 5,145 overweight or obese patients with type 2 diabetes at 16 centers in the U.S.

Patients were randomized to either an intensive lifestyle intervention that focused on cutting calories and increasing physical activity or to a control group that only received diabetes support and education.

When the trial was stopped in September 2012, the median follow-up time was 9.6 years.

Weight loss was greater in the intervention group than in the control group throughout the study (8.6% versus 0.7% at 1 year; 6.0% versus 3.5% at study end).

The intense lifestyle change also produced greater initial improvements in fitness and cardiovascular risk factors, except for LDL cholesterol. But the between-group differences diminished over time.

As for adverse events, the rate of self-reported fractures was significantly higher in the intervention group: 2.51 versus 2.16 per 100 person-years in the control group (P=0.01). However, there was no significant difference in the rate of adjudicated fractures (1.66 and 1.64 per 100 person-years, respectively).

A limitation of the study is that patients who were motivated to lose weight were recruited, so the findings may not generalize to all patients, the researchers said.

In an accompanying editorial, Hertzel Gerstein, MD, of the University of Hamilton in Ontario in Canada, wrote, "Even with no clear evidence of cardiovascular benefit, the Look AHEAD investigators have shown that attention to activity and diet can safely reduce the burden of diabetes and have reaffirmed the importance of lifestyle approaches as one of the foundations of modern diabetes care."

Hotels In Northern California - Mandela's Health Worsens, Condition Now 'Critical'

Source - http://www.reuters.com/
By - Ed Cropley
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa's 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable," it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as "serious but stable" although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent's biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public's last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was "in good shape" although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

"Obviously we are very worried," ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. "We are praying for him, his family and the doctors."

"ABSOLUTELY AN ICON"

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" and one of the 20th century's most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was "time to let him go".

"He's absolutely an icon and if he's gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I'm sure we've all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go," said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

"He's done his best," he added. "We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done."

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

"Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)," Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 89, said in a documentary aired on South African television this month.

"That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint."

California Vacation Packages - Apple Wins Patent Suit Against Samsung in Tokyo On Touch Panels

Source - http://www.businessweek.com/
By - Takashi Amano and Mariko Yasu
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Apple Inc. (AAPL) won a patent lawsuit in Japan, as a Tokyo judge ruled that Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) smartphones and a tablet computer infringed on its visual effects for touch panels.

Samsung and Apple, the world’s two biggest smartphone makers, have each scored victories in patent disputes fought over four continents since the maker of the iPhone accused Asia’s biggest electronics maker of “slavishly copying” its devices. The companies, are competing for dominance of a global mobile-device market estimated by researcher Yankee Group at $346 billion in 2012.

Samsung infringed Apple’s patent on the way an iPad or iPhone screen seems to bounce when a user scrolls to the end of a file, the Cupertino, California-based company said in the lawsuit.

In August, Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji ruled against Apple in a lawsuit that claimed Samsung smartphones and tablet computers infringe on an invention for synchronizing music and video data with servers.

The Tokyo District Court in February rejected Samsung’s request to suspend sales of iPhones and iPads in the nation.

Shipments of tablet computers in Japan jumped 104 percent to 5.68 million units in the year ended March, according to Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd. Apple controlled 53 percent of the market, while Samsung ranked fifth with a 4.3 percent share, the researcher said last month.

Smartphone shipments rose 4 percent to 6.81 million units in Japan during the first three months of 2013, according to research company IDC. Apple had 40 percent of sales, while Samsung didn’t rank in the top five, the researcher said last week.

Hotels In Northern California - Big Banks Are Violating National Mortgage Settlement, Report Says

Source - http://www.washingtonpost.com/
By - Danielle Douglas
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

A new study supports complaints by state prosecutors that some of the nation’s biggest banks have violated the terms of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, a landmark agreement to clean up shoddy foreclosure practices.

The court-appointed monitor of the settlement said in a report Wednesday that Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have dragged their feet in processing homeowners’ requests for lower monthly loan payments.

It is the same charge being made against the banks by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two were among the 49 state attorneys general who brokered the settlement with the top five mortgage servicers last year.

The deal was supposed to ensure that struggling homeowners would not have to endure the same miscommunication, delays and botched paperwork that was commonplace after the housing bust. But, according the monitor, some things haven’t changed.

Four out of five banks failed at least one of the 29 metrics the monitor used to measure their compliance with the 304 servicing standards outlined in the settlement.

The report “affirms that the pattern of violations by Wells Fargo that my office documented in New York is harming homeowners nationwide,” said Schneiderman, who threatened to sue Wells Fargo and Bank of America in May over the violations. “These flagrant violations put homeowners in New York and across the nation at greater risk of foreclosure.”

The most common problem found among the servicers, in particular at Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, was failure to notify homeowners of any missing documents in their modification requests within five days of receipt, according to the settlement monitor, Joseph A. Smith Jr. Citigroup and Bank of America were also cited for providing inaccurate information to borrowers before beginning a foreclosure.

“Progress is being made in a number of areas, but other harmful practices endure,” Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said during a call with reporters.

Donovan said other banks are likely to join the settlement agreement in coming weeks.

“It is time for [the banks] to live up to their end of the deal,” he said. “. . . If they don’t, we’ll explore all options to remedy this situation, from fining them to hauling them back into court.”

Servicers cited in the report must put in place a plan approved by the monitor to correct the problem. If the problem reoccurs within six months, the monitor can take legal action and seek fines of up to $5 million.

The report said all of the banks cited are fixing the problems. JPMorgan has given refunds to 2,000 borrowers after improperly charging them for a type of mortgage insurance.

Bank of America spokesman Dan Frahm said the bank “took immediate action” to resolve the problems found in the report. He said the issues did not result in “inaccurate foreclosures or improper loan modification denials.”

ResCap, formerly known as Ally Financial, passed the monitor’s tests through the end of 2012, but the company’s bankruptcy proceedings this year delayed additional testing. The monitor is now working to continue the process.

The monitor’s office received nearly 60,000 consumer complaints between October and March. A majority of the grievances involved borrowers who said they were bounced around to different bank employees rather than being given a single point of contact. Homeowners also complained that banks were initiating foreclosures while simultaneously negotiating a modification, a practice known as dual tracking.

“A lot of the complaints closely correlate with the failures that we found,” Smith said.

He said his office is developing some new metrics to, among other things, clearly define what documents borrowers have to file when applying for a loan modification.

A key objective of the settlement was to improve the way servicers interact with struggling homeowners. In some respects, the banks have accomplished that goal. There were no reports of servicers losing documents or using forged paperwork to quickly foreclose on borrowers — the sorts of allegations that led to investigations and the eventual agreement in the first place, said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.

“There is a difference,” he said. “You look at the dysfunctional system that we saw three years ago . . . banks never could have provided the kind of homeowner relief we’re seeing today under their old system.”

The five servicers have provided $50.6 billion worth of loan modifications, short sales, refinancing and forbearance assistance to more than half a million borrowers across the country, according to a report released last month by the settlement monitor.

“We have some more work to do, but we’re better off today than we were a year ago,” Smith said. “A lot of the metrics were passed. The process has gotten better. Servicers are more responsive.”

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Candy Crush Soon To Hit The Stock Market; Developer Hired Analysts To Pursue IPO

Source - http://www.hngn.com/
By - Julie S
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

This may sound really weird but its developer, King, has hired Wall Street firms including J.P Morgan Chase, Credit Cruisse, and Bank of America to pursue this IPO plan. They will be discussing the pricing and timing of the IPO.

So why did King decided to do IPO? “King's success and growth presents numerous opportunities for the business to develop further, and one option would be to take the company public,” King told the Wall Street Journal. “However, while it's an option for the future, we would not comment on when we could consider making such a decision."

This move by King is a brave move for a game developer after Zynga’s performance plummeted to 70 percent of its IPO price. It will be quite difficult for the investors to decide to put their money on another online game.

However, mobile game developers may be successful if they are able to convince the investors since mobile game sales were projected to yield over $9 billion this year which is 13.5 percent higher than last year.

Candy Crush is not alone in this plan as other games are also planning to do IPO such as Kabam Inc.’s Kingdom of Camelot and The Fast and The Furious 6 which may be offered to the public in 2014. Rovio Entertainment Ltd., developer of Angry Birds, also expressed its interest, and then there is Supercell Oy that introduced as Clash of Clans and Hay Day.

Once Candy Crush becomes successful, we should expect more games joining the stock market soon. While others believe that investing on games is not a wise decision, it will still depend on how King can convince the audience to invest to them.