Sightseeing should be fun. However, long days of walking from one site to another can be difficult and exhausting. Traveling through DC via Tour Bus will allow the entire group to enjoy the experience full. Fight the exhaustion, frustration, and danger inherent to sightseeing which are all avoidable with professional transportation.
Set Your Schedule
Choosing what to see via your Tour Bus Rental in DC and what youll have to save for the next trip can be difficult when you have a large group with many different opinions. You should make every effort to research ahead of time, get together, set priorities, and make a plan. When this is impossible, you can also make it happen with the help of our on-site coordinator who is extremely familiar with the city and can make suggestions. Regardless of how your plan is formed, once its complete, deliver it via our 24/7 customer service division so that your priorities become ours.
Getting from site to site efficiently without having to walk, depend on public transit, or search for parking is incredibly time saving and energy conserving. Tour Buses of DC will protect you from exhaustion and frustration, allowing all the members of your group to fully interact with the experience and maintain the level of stamina to really enjoy the trip. Our chauffeurs will promptly deliver your travel group from curbside to curbside, wait for you to finish, and be ready for pickup according to your itinerary. Save your time and energy and allow our background verified and drug tested chauffeurs facilitate your sightseeing experience.
Relax and Be Confident in the Ride
Picture whiling away your time in DC waiting on a replacement vehicle when the initial machine has issues. If that sounds like a fury provoking disaster, we understand. We want to avoid this circumstance at all costs, so we keep our fleet well. We fully insure, license, and bond all vehicles; eliminate older models from service; and frequently provide vehicles with preventative inspection and repair. Not only will your ride proceed smoothly, the vehicle will be pleasant and promote relaxation and enjoyment.
Booking online within months or days in advance of service is all that is necessary to arrange service. With a few swipes, you can have your machine ready and waiting to facilitate your sightseeing extravaganza!
Sightseeing should be fun. However, long days of walking from one site to another can be difficult and exhausting. Traveling through DC via Tour Bus will allow the entire group to enjoy the experience full. Fight the exhaustion, frustration, and danger inherent to sightseeing which are all avoidable with professional transportation.
Set Your Schedule
Choosing what to see via your Tour Bus Rental in DC and what youll have to save for the next trip can be difficult when you have a large group with many different opinions. You should make every effort to research ahead of time, get together, set priorities, and make a plan. When this is impossible, you can also make it happen with the help of our on-site coordinator who is extremely familiar with the city and can make suggestions. Regardless of how your plan is formed, once its complete, deliver it via our 24/7 customer service division so that your priorities become ours.
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Bank of America leads Consumer Financial Protection Bureau complaints about mortgages
A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.
Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.
The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.
According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.
The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.
Total complaints against mortgage companies by state Image: Laura Hale.
California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.
Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.
For the top 5 lenders by volume of complaints, the percentage of complaint types against them. Image: Laura Hale.
The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.
Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.
Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.
By state complaints against mortgage lenders by monthImage: Laura Hale.
Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.
Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.
Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.
The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.
Announced early Wednesday morning at Nokia’s GoEvent, in a plan to expand the company’s revenue, Finland-based company Nokia Inc. is developing a mobile phone similar to its rival iPhone, which will be available in the near future for Nokia customers. The phone is expected to be available by 2008.
Most of the features are the same as the iPhone’s. They include music, games, and many other features, even ones that the iPhone may not have. Ovi (in Finnish meaning “Door”) will be the door for more than 2 million songs and games available for download on the new device. Users will be able to download wirelessly in their own home or anywhere there is access to a computer.
But this is not the first time Nokia has made an attempt like this to increase its revenue. In October of 2003 the company revealed the N-Gage, a game-playing cell phone, but was “stocked-out” due to poor sales. The N95 smartphone, which was released in the U.S. on April 7, 2007 (before the iPhone on June 29, 2007) includes WiFi, a GPS, a music player, and a 5 megapixel digital camera. The three other phones that were revealed at the event in London will be in-stock next quarter. The new N81 and the modified N95 smartphones were among the revealed at yesterday’s event; the N81 is a new member to Nokia’s smartphone family; the N95 has been modified by having more memory and a sleeker LCD screen.
When Nokia was asked about the striking similarity between this and the iPhone, Nokia’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, Anssi Vanjoki, said, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”
Nokia first demoed their iPhone rival August 29th. During their demo they omitted the fact that the demo was for the software to be in use, not the actual hardware.[1]
Today many business owners and executives are jumping over to the social media marketing services. And once they gain the momentum and completely understands as how to use it, it becomes a challenging job for the one who has not adopted the means of social media marketing. Advertising cost is reduced when one is taking up social media marketing which increases advertising effectiveness and executive awareness with respect to the products and services and how the customers react to those. Social media marketing is not only marketing on social channels. A company who is entering the social media realm, should essentially employ many key staff members who can socialize and market through these social channels. Networking through social media goes through a process,its not about handling out business cards as soon as one enters a room. Through social media marketing companies connect better with leads and clients. It also allows an individual to imitate a company so that they can detain the latest updates of their products and services. Social media marketing ramp up relationships and loyalty, opportunities and awareness. In the last 100 years social media marketing is the only galactic transformation in the marketing industry. If one is not using social media marketing they are leaving behind hundreds or thousands of opportunities for the competitors to take hold of.
There are several social media marketing agencies, but choosing the best among them is the point that is to be kept in mind. Before hiring a social media expert it is always wise to review the experience and the portfolio. Every social media marketing agency have a relevant experience, choosing one by analyzing the proven result is smart. Social media marketing helps to deliver the top rank in the search engine by the use of unique keyword phrases. Where over-optimization can spoil the entire thing. The optimization strategy must be balanced else the search engine may term it as a manipulating search. Higher values can be provided to the readers by keeping them engaged in conversations. Involving in discussions and replying to the blog comments and asking for feedbacks draws more traffic as if insures that the person is real and not just any other company. Expressing thoughts on any topic will attract the ideal visitor and customers. Social media marketing can always be used as an opportunity to make actual connection with the targeted market, as an ecommerce site always have its limits in setting up trust and building long-term relationships with the target market. Social media marketing task needs to be performed in a regular basis, else it will not turn up giving good results in the later days. To derive maximum benefits from social media marketing the proper way to pull attention should be adopted. The other important task of social media marketing is updating profiles and interacting with users in a regular basis. These are the skilled areas of work to obtain maximum results. SEO Reseller Services
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Victoria Wyndham on Another World and another life
Victoria Wyndham was one of the most seasoned and accomplished actresses in daytime soap opera television. She played Rachel Cory, the maven of Another World‘s fictional town, Bay City, from 1972 to 1999 when the show went off the air. Wyndham talks about how she was seen as the anchor of a show, and the political infighting to keep it on the air as NBC wanted to wrest control of the long-running soap from Procter & Gamble. Wyndham fought to keep it on the air, but eventually succumbed to the inevitable. She discusses life on the soap opera, and the seven years she spent wandering “in the woods” of Los Angeles seeking direction, now divorced from a character who had come to define her professional career. Happy, healthy and with a family she is proud of, Wyndham has found life after the death of Another World in painting and animals. Below is David Shankbone’s interview with the soap diva.
Contents
1 Career and motherhood
2 The politics behind the demise of Another World
3 Wyndham’s efforts to save Another World
4 The future of soap operas
5 Wyndham’s career and making it as a creative
6 Television’s lust for youth
7 Her relationship today to the character Rachel Cory
8 Wyndham on a higher power and the creative process
9 After AW: Wyndham lost in California
10 Wyndham discovers painting
11 Wyndham on the state of the world
12 Source
Couple takes lawyer hostage and said to have explosives
A male and a female took 3 people hostage at a law firm in Statesboro, Georgia. Police blocked off a part of this rural town on Monday. Two suspects , a man and a woman, took a lawyer hostage and claimed that they had explosives.
The suspects, Robert Eugene Brower, 43, a former client of the lawyer, and the female whose name was not released, gave up after demands for cigarettes and food were met and they spoke with a family member.
The standoff lasted for 24 hours and ended, “peacefully,” at around 10AM said Larry Schnall, a spokesman for the Georgia State Patrol.
The last of the 3 hostages to be released was identified as Michael Hostilo. He and the other two hostages were not injured. There is no word on the names of the other hostages.
Earlier reports stated that there had been a “loud boom” coming from the scene at about six o’clock this morning. Authorities have not stated what the booms were.
Police are now inside the building to locate and defuse the explosive device that the suspects claimed to have had.
Initially when police arrived, there were 3 hostages, but 2 had been recently released and were unharmed, said Maggie Fitzgerald, a city spokeswoman. “They are upset with some legal issues within the recent past and want to get those issues resolved. We are doing everything possible to end this situation without anyone being hurt.”
In a news conference Monday night, Police Chief Stan York said Brower was angry about “having been convicted in a criminal case”, in which the lawyer was his court-appointed attorney. York did not elaborate on the demands of the hostage-takers, other than saying, “they only wanted to call attention to the case.”
Georgia State Trooper Larry Schnall, a spokesman for the Georgia State Patrol, said a SWAT team was sent to the scene.
This morning authorities convinced the two suspects to give-up, but “incidents leading to an escalation resulted in some gunfire,” Stan York in a press conference just moments ago. No one was hurt in the brief eruption of gunfire.
Police later said when the suspects tried to surrender they became apprehensive and made a threatening gesture prompting authorities to draw their guns and open fire.
Researchers have found a crucial genetic difference between humans and chimps that could help explain our language and speech abilities. The difference lies in a gene called FOXP2 which encodes for a protein of the same name. This acts as a transcription factor, controlling the activity of other genes.
A rendering of the FOXP2 protein
The human and chimp versions of the protein differ in only two of their 740 amino acid components, but when researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, replaced the human gene with the chimp version in neurons grown in the laboratory, they found it affected the expression of at least 116 other genes.
The results are detailed in a paper published on Thursday in the scientific journal Nature.
Author of the study Dr. Daniel Geschwind, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said the gene had a “major role” in differences between chimps and humans. “We showed that the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 not only look different but function differently too.”
We believe FOXP2 is not only important for the higher order cognitive aspect of language but also for the motor aspect of speech and language
Some of the affected genes control the formation of connections in the brain, whilst others relate to facial movements. Several have already been found to be involved in language disorders. Mutations in FOXP2 itself were also known to affect speech and language; the gene was first identified in members of a family suffering from language problems who were found to share a genetic mutation.
Frances Vargha-Khadem at University College London has studied patients with FOXP2 mutations, and agrees with the new research. As well as language problems, some of her subjects have changes in the shape of their jaws, mouths and tongues. She thinks that chimps may also have these differences.
“We believe FOXP2 is not only important for the higher order cognitive aspect of language but also for the motor aspect of speech and language,” said Genevieve Konopka, one of the authors of the paper at UCLA.
Previous research indicates that the changes in FOXP2 occurred around 200,000 years ago with the rise of modern humans. Geschwind also suggests that several of the related genes may have evolved together. Preliminary studies have shown signs that they too emerged relatively recently.
Scientists are now keen to further study FOXP2 and the genes that it affects. Geschwind believes this could eventually lead to breakthroughs in treatment for disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, which affect language skills.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the A.P. Giannini Foundation and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.
The automatic watch winder mimics the motions of its wearer and maintains the watchs functionality. For most people, watch winders are not necessary. Most experts agree that watch winders are convenience products, not necessarily for your every day watch. Prices for automatic watch winders can easily be into the thousands of dollars but are commonly used by collectors and watch enthusiasts. People who own very expensive, antique, collectible or beloved watches often do not wear them enough (if at all); in cases such as this, many people find that an automatic watch winder keeps their treasured items working nicely.
Kinetic watch winders are among the most popular and utilized winders on the market today. Like other common watch winders, they are based on the principle of using body motion to move the small, internal watch weight to keep the watch wound. The difference in kinetic watch winders and other winder products is the usage of a quartz crystal in the watch. Body movements, particularly the normal movement of the wrist, cause the crystal to act similar to a weight. The crystal becomes charged by these movements and can keep the watch operating properly for up to two weeks.
How can you determine if you may need a watch winder? Firstly, watch winders are considered useful as a convenience but not completely a necessary item. Most watches that are automatic will have automatic marked, usually on the fact of the watch. Another way to tell is if there is the absence of a compartment to hold a battery. Another instance in which one might need a watch winder is if he or she owns multiple automatic watches. Obviously, if you own more than one automatic watch, at least one of them will not be worn frequently. In order to prevent the less-than-frequently worn watches from running down, an automatic watch winder can be very handy. Basically, if you own more than one automatic watch or you wear your watch less than at least a few days a week, a watch winder might be something to consider.
Experts suggest that if you choose to purchase a watch winder to choose one with care. Some even suggest that buying a poor quality automatic watch winder is worse than not having one at all. Since automatic watches are designed to store energy based on human body movement, watch winders should be created to mimic those movements as closely as possible. Carefully crafted and designed watch winders perform fixed number of directions and types of movement. Poorly crafted watch winders may not have as smooth or delicate movements thereby causing unnecessary damage to the delicate workings of your treasured timepiece.
30,000-year-old Austrian statue traced to stone from Italy
In findings published on Monday in Scientific Reports, scientists from the University of Vienna and Vienna Natural History Museum, Austria found the stone used to carve the Venus of Willendorf came from northern Italy, hundreds of miles from its origin, on the other side of the Alps.
The Venus of Willendorf, all sides. Image: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen.
The 30 thousand-year-old sculpture is one of the oldest examples of human art. It stands about 4.3 inches (11 cm) tall. Like many prehistoric statuettes, it shows a female figure with a large stomach and breasts. However, while most of these other examples were carved from ivory or bone, the Venus is made of a stone called oolite, a type of limestone. Scientists believe it was carved by people of the Gravettian culture, probably with flint tools. Scientists named it after Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
Scientists compared rock samples from as west as France and as east as Ukraine to microscopic views of the Venus. Because oolite is a sedimentary rock formed by layers of silt and other materials building up over time, it is possible to discern individual grains and bits of shell that make up the stone. One of the tiny shell fragments in the statue came from a creature that lived during the Jurassic period, though the stone itself would have been harvested and carved much later.
Unlike previous examinations of the Venus, which evaluated only the exterior of the work, scientists used computed tomography to look inside the statue without damaging it. The scan showed the Venus had little resemblance with oolites near Willendorf, but that it was almost identical to those from Lake Garda in Italy, on the other side of the Alps and the Danube river, over 350 miles (563 km) away. A less possible site of origin is in Ukraine, over 1,600 kilometers (994 mi) east of where the statue was found in 1908, in Wachau, Austria.
Lead author Gerhard Weber speculated the stone may have moved during a migration: “When the climate or the prey situation changed, [people] moved on, preferably along rivers,” he said.
The scientists say these findings have implications for the way prehistoric humans in and around the Alps traveled from place to place.
The study was funded by the state of Lower Austria.
2005 Wikimedia file photo of the Glasgow Central Mosque in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Scotsman uncovers what it calls “a largely-unannounced propaganda campaign” by John Reid, the UK Home Secretary, intended to prevent the spread of extremism among young British Muslims. Islamic teachers and preachers have been recruited to put the case against violence and promote moderation. The media used for this campaign include a website – The Radical Middle Way, events held in different parts of the country, courses of lectures, pod casts, and CDs. Listed among the supporters of this campaign, which include a number of book shops. food providers and charities, are the Home Office, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
One Home Office source is quoted as saying that “…there are forces within this country trying to manipulate the feeling of British Muslims, and we have to do more to combat those forces”.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality is reported as saying on BBC 1’s Sunday AM programme that he would not want to be a Muslim, because what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people “seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that can’t be right”.
What stimulated the rush to the studios of politicians and Ministers to give their opinions on Muslim culture was the objection that the Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw had, to women wearing the full veil when attending his surgery.
