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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/FsZ0lISA_8M/story01.htm
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
TouchPad for iPhone, iPad goes 4.0
Edovia’s TouchPad for iPhone and iPad has just hit version 4.0 and brings with it some great new polish and performance, and some hints at the future of Screens as well.
Rising child poverty rates could be a 'taste' of what's ahead (The Christian Science Monitor)
New York ? In a troubling snapshot of the declining finances of Americans, considerably more school-age children are living in poverty than in the pre-recession year of 2007, the US Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
Of all 3,142 counties in the US, 653 counties saw significant increases in poverty for children ages 5 to 17, according to the 2010 Census Bureau survey. Only eight counties saw a decrease. Nationally, 19.8 percent of schoolchildren qualify as poor ? and one-third of all counties now have child poverty rates above that threshold. About one quarter had child poverty rates significantly lower than the national average.
Among counties with at least 100,000 people, the highest child poverty rates were in Texas' Cameron County (44.9 percent) and Hidalgo County (44.6), Bronx County in New York (41 percent), Webb County in Texas (38.9), and Missouri's St. Louis County (38.6). Among all counties no matter their size, Georgia's Burke County (pop. 23,367) had the highest share of children in poverty, at 47.7 percent.
RECOMMENDED: A long, steep drop for Americans' standard of living
The Census information has important uses. The Department of Education uses the data in its formula for allocating more than $14 billion a year in federal funds, of which a significant amount is directed to school districts with high concentrations of poor students. Other programs, such as those that distribute federal money to libraries and school superintendents, also piggyback on the data, and even some states and counties use the information to divide up their funds.
The Education Department expenditures are ?one of the main programs to allocate federal funds directly to school districts based on their school-age children,? says Wes Basel, branch chief of the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE), a program of the Census Bureau.
Unless the economy improves markedly, future data could be worse. Unless Congress acts, extended unemployment-insurance benefits will expire at the end of the year. So, too, will the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit. These all aid low income families. Congress will also need to decide whether to extend the payroll tax cut, which gives about an extra $1,000 to each household. This tax cut has been helping the middle class.
?Because many of these forms of added assistance are expiring, the rise in poverty shown here unfortunately may be a taste of what is to come,? says Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington. ?We estimate the programs overall ? and other recent initiatives ? are keeping about 7 million people above the poverty line.?
According to the government, the official poverty line for a family of four is $22,314 a year in income.
At the same time as federal programs are in jeopardy, state and local budgets are also being cut, notes Mr. Sherman. ?We are seeing cuts in social services like we have not seen in recent memory,? he says.
One state with a significant number of poor children is Florida, which ranks fourth in terms of school-age children in poverty, says Beth Davalos of the Families in Transition (FIT) program in Seminole County, which lies south of Orlando.
In Seminole County, the number of homeless schoolchildren, some 1,200 students, is up 30 percent over a year ago, according to Ms. Davalos.
A recent episode of CBS's "60 Minutes" profiled the FIT program, focusing on three families who lived in their vehicles while their children attended school. The Metzger family, for example, included a 16-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy living with their dad, an out-of-work carpenter, in the back of a truck. All their food was canned, and their only restrooms were in gasoline stations. Since the show aired, the FIT website has set up a way for people to contribute to the families.
?What is happening here is that the shelters are at 100 percent of capacity and people living with other people ? sleeping on sofas and floors ? can only do it for so long,? says Ms. Davalos. This leads them to either sleeping on the streets or in their vehicles.
The FIT program has some money to help families, but the money comes with certain stipulations. ?The first question we ask is what is your income?? says Davalos. ?If you don?t have some income, you are not eligible for funding,? she explains. ?We are not going to be giving money to people who are going to be in the same situation a few months later.?
Davalos says homelessness is especially tough on children. Two weeks ago, Davalos found a family at a gas station. They had just been evicted from a motel where they had been living and had no money. They were still taking their 5 year old to kindergarten but the child was upset.
?That little 5 year old was so troubled over where it would be sleeping, it was not thinking about 2 + 2,? says Davalos, who put them back in the motel where they had been.
?It?s very stressful for kids with adult worries when they are supposed to be playing, dreaming, and learning,? she says.
RECOMMENDED: A long, steep drop for Americans' standard of living
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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111130/ts_csm/430342
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Europe bond yields to keep stocks spellbound (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? U.S. investors came to the Thanksgiving holiday table on Thursday mostly thankful that the week was a short one, or losses could have been larger.
As another round of news and bond auctions from Europe begins next week, traders will watch closely sovereign bond yields that have kept markets on edge.
Yields rose in almost every euro-zone country this week, and Germany failed to find enough bids for a 10-year auction. The S&P 500 reacted by posting a second straight week of declines and its worst week in two months.
Politicians are scrambling to find a way out of a two-year-old sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone and a visit to Washington from top European Union officials, as well as a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers, will provide the market with headlines and possibly add to uncertainty.
With the specter of rising yields, France, Britain, Italy, Belgium and Spain are holding debt sales next week. The direction of bond yields will determine the direction of equity markets.
"Politicians are trying to buy themselves time so austerity measures kick in and impact budgets and deficits and markets become more forgiving and rates come down," said Wasif Latif, vice president of equity investments at the San Antonio, Texas-based USAA Investment Management, which manages about $45 billion.
"The credit market and fixed income are a little bit more in the eye of storm; that's where the issue is rising, so equities are more reactionary," he said. "You may continue to see more of the same."
Investors have worried about rising borrowing costs in many euro-zone nations, but Italy, the third-largest euro zone economy, has grabbed most of the focus. On Friday Rome paid a record 6.5 percent to borrow for six months and almost 8 percent to issue two-year zero coupon bonds.
Many market participants have said that the sharply differentiated risk-on and -off trades that the euro zone crisis has generated has seen equities being sold as an asset class, with little or no difference between strong and week balance sheets and earnings reports. But a wedge has opened at least from a global perspective, as data show stocks of companies with more exposure to Europe are underperforming.
POLITICS TO DRIVE THE WEEK
President Barack Obama will meet on Monday with European Council President Herman van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Europe's response to the two-year sovereign debt crisis is expected to top the agenda.
"The only thing that will come out of that is speculation," said Todd Salamone, vice president of research at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, referring to the meeting in Washington.
"It will come down to the U.S. trying to convince European leaders to get something in place to solve this crisis."
Not many hopes are set either on Tuesday's meeting where euro-zone finance ministers are expected to agree on how to further strengthen the region's bailout fund.
On Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi presents the bank's annual report to the European parliament.
As the latest reminder from markets to politicians that they are running out of time, Belgium's credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor's.
IF EUROPE ALLOWS, DATA WILL BE KEY
Some of the most important U.S. economic monthly data will be released next week, but will it be enough to unlink the stock market's behavior and European yields.
New home sales and the S&P/Case-Shiller home prices index will start the week showing if the housing market continues on life support. Data on confidence among consumers, who flooded U.S. stores on Friday as the holiday shopping season started, will be released on Tuesday.
The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing report is due, with investors not only looking at the U.S. number on Wednesday but also factory readings from Europe and China on Thursday.
By midweek labor data takes over with the private sector employment report from ADP and Challenger's job cuts report, followed Thursday by the weekly jobless claims numbers and topped by Friday's monthly non-farm payrolls report.
"It would be a little bit refreshing to focus on the U.S. data for a change," said Brian Lazorishak, senior quantitative analyst and portfolio manager at Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He said if European headlines allow it, the focus will be in the labor market where "most people are looking for modest improvement."
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Correction: People-Michael Nyqvist story (AP)
NEW YORK ? In a Nov. 28 story about the remake of the film "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," The Associated Press, relying on information from a publicist, erroneously reported the location of the cafe where scenes were filmed. It is in Stockholm, Sweden, not Los Angeles. In addition, the AP misstated the title of a film featuring actor Michael Nyqvist. It is "Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol," not "Mission: Impossible ? The Ghost Protocol."
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Corruption in Mexico casinos takes a toll in the US, too
WATERSMEET, Mich. ? Hard times have been a constant for most members of the Chippewa Indian tribe known as the Lac Vieux Desert Band.
Nestled in a wooded corner of Michigan?s Upper Peninsula, the tribe owns a modest casino, a hotel and a golf course. But the complex is far off the beaten path for tourists or gamblers, and many of the tribe?s 600 or so members find steady work as unlikely as winning a jackpot.
So when a Mexico casino czar named Juan Jose Rojas-Cardona sent an offer to invest in Mexico?s booming gambling industry, it seemed like a godsend.
But rather than a big payout, the disadvantaged Lac Vieux tribe got swindled. Its multimillion-dollar "investment" disappeared, adding the tribe to a list of victims that includes a mammoth hedge fund in London, an Australian manufacturer of gaming machines, an Arizona investor and two Mexican textile tycoons.
Rojas-Cardona, however, has gone on to build one of the biggest gambling empires in Mexico. Relying on a silky sales pitch and apparent close connections to Mexico?s top politicians, perhaps including presidents, Rojas-Cardona now holds 60 permits to operate casinos in Mexico ? even though gambling remains technically illegal in that country.
A horrendous act of violence on Aug. 25 first exposed the dark underside of Mexico?s casino industry when gangsters firebombed the Casino Royale in Monterrey, Mexico?s industrial northern hub, killing 52 people. Those arrested later confessed that they were pressuring the casino owners for payoffs on behalf of Los Zetas, one of Mexico?s two biggest crime groups.
But a McClatchy Newspapers probe in the months since has found evidence that the corruption in Mexico?s gambling industry goes much deeper than a shakedown by drug gangs. Indeed, the entire industry appears to be deliberately opaque, designed by political barons as a way for them to hand out licenses as favors, tap casino coffers for cash, and let casino operators flout the law.
The Mexican system is so corrupt and unregulated that U.S. casino companies refuse to enter the Mexican market. That, however, has not kept Americans from being victims of the corruption.
It?s unclear what, if anything, the U.S. government has done to warn investors of the risks or to help prosecute alleged scammers such as Rojas-Cardona, whose criminal record in the United States includes the dismissal of a drug charge in New Mexico.
Rojas-Cardona?s life in Mexico includes a near assassination in 2007 that was laid to drug barons or rival casino operators.
Ironically, gambling in Mexico has thrived under the National Action Party, or PAN, which swept into power in 2000 promising an end to the corruption and cronyism that had flourished in Mexico during the long reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The PAN?s candidate in 2000, Vicente Fox, was the country?s first non-PRI president in more than 70 years, and his successor, current President Felipe Calderon, a fellow PAN member, won the post in 2006 in one of the most closely contested races in Mexico?s history.
In a dizzying inconsistency, Fox?s government in 2004 issued regulations that essentially ignored Mexico?s 1947 law that bans gambling. Even though that law remains in effect, Mexico?s Supreme Court allowed the new regulations to go forward. In the ensuing years, first Fox?s administration, and then Calderon?s, issued licenses allowing 867 gaming venues, permitting some bingo, sports betting and slot machine parlors to expand into poker, roulette and craps without explicit legalization.
Calderon?s office declined to comment on whether the president knew Rojas-Cardona.
Hundreds of full-fledged casinos now dot Mexican cities, and scores, if not hundreds, more operate off the books or under court protection from friendly judges who provide legal relief. Politicians balk at enacting new laws legalizing the current situation for fear that under-the-table payments may dry up and that global gaming companies could move in and dominate.
Mexican political barons draw on the casinos as if they were "petty cash boxes," said Lizbeth Garcia Coronado, a member of Mexico?s Chamber of Deputies and the coordinator of the chamber?s working group on gambling. "But it?s not ?petty.? The casinos generate a lot of money."
Mexican regulators couldn?t seem to bend the rules fast enough once they were in place. For example, Mexico?s assistant general director of gaming and lotteries, Roberto Correa Mendez, issued permits for 41 new casinos on the day he quit in 2009.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bostonherald/news/~3/Eb7K_jdbpS8/view.bg
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BOJ Shirakawa warns Japan economic outlook severe (Reuters)
NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) ? Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa on Monday warned the country's economy will remain in a severe state for now as Europe's sovereign debt crisis and yen rises cloud the outlook, signaling the central bank's readiness to boost monetary stimulus further if risks to the recovery heighten.
But he said Japan cannot escape deflation just by having the central bank print money, stressing that government and corporate efforts to boost productivity and nurture new industries were also necessary.
Shirakawa stuck to the view that Japan's economy will eventually resume a moderate recovery backed by solid demand in emerging nations, but warned that Europe's debt woes were the predominant risk to this outlook.
He also said Japan will continue to seek G7 and G20 understanding over its action to curb sharp yen rises, stressing that Tokyo's latest intervention was aimed at curbing excessive and disorderly currency moves.
"When uncertainty over the overseas economic outlook is high, as is the case now, yen rises may hurt Japan's economy by reducing exports and corporate profits as well as by worsening business sentiment. We need to be mindful of this," he told business leaders in Nagoya in the central Japan prefecture of Aichi, home to automobile giant Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T).
"Japan's economy will likely be in a severe state for the time being, especially with respect to exports," he said.
Japan intervened in the currency market and eased monetary policy in October to ease the pain on the export-reliant economy from sharp yen rises and slowing overseas growth.
The BOJ kept monetary settings unchanged this month but warned of the widening fallout from Europe's debt crisis, signaling its readiness to ease policy again if Japan's economic recovery comes under threat.
Shirakawa said European banks are being forced to curb lending as they face difficulty raising funds in the market, warning of heightening tensions in global markets, particularly for dollar funding.
"In Europe, shrinking market confidence over its fiscal state is heightening concern over the region's financial system stability, which in turn is affecting the economy," he said.
Shirakawa said the BOJ will continue to do its utmost to support Japan' economy. But he countered the view that it was not easing aggressively enough compared with other central banks, saying Japan's private-sector borrowing costs are the lowest among advanced economies.
"To believe that deflation can be solved by printing money alone would be considering the problem in too simplistic terms," Shirakawa said.
"What's most important is to strengthen the growth potential for Japan's economy," he said.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Oil rises above $99 in Asia as stock markets gain
BANGKOK (AP) ? Oil prices rose above $99 a barrel Monday in Asia, taking a cue from gains in stock markets after a strong start to the U.S. holiday shopping season.
Benchmark crude for January delivery was up $2.49 to $99.30 a barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 60 cents to settle at $96.77 on Friday.
In London, Brent crude was up $2.13 at $107.99 on the ICE futures exchange.
Oil took its cue from Asian and European stocks, which were mostly higher Monday after record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day U.S. holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day. That was up from 212 million last year, according to early estimates by The National Retail Federation.
Reports that France and Germany might circumvent European bureaucracy to get nations using the euro common currency to comply with strict rules for budget discipline also boosted sentiment.
Crude has fallen from above $103 more than a week ago amid investor concern that Europe's debt crisis will undermine global economic growth and oil demand.
In other Nymex trading, natural gas was up 0.3 cent at $3.545 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil added 4.8 cents to $2.99 a gallon and gasoline rose 6.6 cents to $2.52 a gallon.
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Bay Area tries to pull together to help seniors in need at upcoming health summit (San Jose Mercury News)
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