Articles and More!: Extended

Showing posts with label Extended. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2014

READ: Excerpt from "A Sliver of Light" Ahead of Tuesday"s Extended Interview with Iran Hikers

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READ: Excerpt from "A Sliver of Light" Ahead of Tuesday"s Extended Interview with Iran Hikers

Thursday, January 16, 2014

TYT Network Reports - The Young Turks Extended Clip January 13, 2014

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TYT Network Reports - The Young Turks Extended Clip January 13, 2014

Saturday, January 11, 2014

TYT Network Reports - The Young Turks Extended Clip January 8, 2014

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TYT Network Reports - The Young Turks Extended Clip January 8, 2014

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Sign-up Period Extended Again for Health Plan

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would provide more time for people to sign up for health insurance if they could show that they missed the Tuesday deadline for applications because of problems with the federal health care website.

The Times would like to hear from Americans who have signed up for health care under the Affordable Care Act.

Day Is Added to Deadline as Rush Hits Health Portal (December 24, 2013)

In effect, the administration was stretching the deadline once again, after a last-minute surge of interest among people seeking coverage. The administration hailed what it described as “amazing interest” in new health insurance options and said the federal website alone received “two million site visits” on Monday.

The original deadline was Dec. 15 for people to sign up for coverage that takes effect in January; it was later extended by eight days. On Monday, the White House added a 24-hour grace period, to 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday.

Then on Tuesday, in another bid to expand coverage, the administration provided details of a “special enrollment period” for people who would miss the deadline.

“If you weren’t able to enroll in an insurance plan by Dec. 23 because of problems you had using HealthCare.gov, you still may be able to get coverage that starts Jan. 1,” the administration told visitors to the website. “Even though we have passed the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1, we don’t want you to miss out if you’ve been trying to enroll.

“Sometimes despite your best efforts, you might have run into delays caused by heavy traffic to HealthCare.gov, maintenance periods, or other issues with our systems that prevented you from finishing the process on time. If this happened to you, don’t worry — we still may be able to help you get covered as soon as Jan. 1.”

Republicans said the latest move showed that President Obama was desperate to increase enrollment, widely seen as a measure of the success of the health care law.

For their part, administration officials said the move was a common-sense response to heavy website traffic, which they cited as evidence of the need for more affordable insurance.

Some 48 million Americans are estimated to be uninsured.

NYT > International Home

Sign-up Period Extended Again for Health Plan

Monday, December 23, 2013

Surprise! ObamaCare Deadline Extended One Day

(Newser) – Because people love nothing more than shopping on Christmas Eve, the Obama administration today extended by 24 hours the deadline to sign up for a health care plan that would kick in on the first of the year, CNN Money reports. The move is such a last-minute surprise that when CNN called insurance giant Aetna, a spokeswoman said she had no knowledge of the extension. A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services explained that they were “anticipating high demand and the fact that consumers may be enrolling from multiple time zones.”

The original deadline was actually a week ago, the AP points out, but it was pushed back amidst the site’s glitches. “It’s just nonstop now. Everybody knows about it. Everybody wants it,” a Florida enrollment counselor said. But if you miss the deadline don’t panic; the government is trying to talk insurers into covering even the true procrastinators who sign up in the middle of January as though they’d been signed up since New Year’s, and even if those companies refuse, you have until March 31 to sign up before facing a penalty.

Politics from Newser

Surprise! ObamaCare Deadline Extended One Day

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Extended Stay And The Wall Street Meth Labs

When Wachovia and the rest of its syndicate funded the $ 7.4 billion debt portion of the transaction on a bridge loan basis, they had an analysis from Standard & Poor’s which said the company was only worth $ 4.8 billion. So on the eve of the “fee fest” occasioned by Blackstone’s IPO, the Wall Street banks wrote a bridge loan for 150 percent of what even their hirelings at the rating agencies believed Extended Stay America was actually worth.

As indicated, Extended Stay’s assets were essentially drywall motel rooms painted in three colors. The reason presumably adult bankers believed such flimsy assets could be leveraged at 150 percent of their ostensible value was that they were in the business of hiding the pea.

Thus, the senior portion of the financing consisted of $ 4.1 billion of mortgage loans that were dumped into a structured finance pool, or “conduit,” known as a commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS). Then this huge pool of debt was sliced into eighteen different tranches. Six of these tranches were given the highest AAA rating, meaning that the $ 2.6 billion of mortgage-backed securities issued from this tranche had first call on the cash from interest and principle payments coming into the pool. Below that there were many more tranches, each with a lower claim on the mortgage pool’s cash, and therefore a greater risk of loss.

And that was the simple part! The CMBS debt had a direct lien on the hotels in the operating subsidiaries, but there were many more layers—$ 3.3 billion worth—which did not own anything except the stock of subsidiaries which had already hocked all of their hard assets. This so-called mezzanine or subordinated debt was also sliced into a dozen different layers, and each was subject to mind-boggling complexities with respect to access to cash flow from the hotels.

The details of this capital structure were daunting, but the purpose was crystal clear; it was designed to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. During boom times these subordinated tranches were saleable to high-yield mutual funds and credit-oriented hedge funds because they were designed to satisfy the hunger for “yield” which had been induced by the Fed’s interest rate repression policies. In truth, however, these junk securities were vastly overvalued relative to their embedded risks. So when the US economy weakened and hotel revpar began to head south in 2008 the subordinated tranches plummeted in value.

The sudden, drastic repricing of these subordinated debt tranches, which had been replicated by Wall Street in thousands of so-called “structured finance” deals, was the proximate cause of the September 2008 meltdown. This is powerfully illustrated by the fate of the $ 7.4 billion Extended Stay financing, much of which remained stuffed in the Wall Street meth labs until the very end.

Thus, Wachovia still held $ 1.5 billion of the Extended Stay financing, while Bank America had retained $ 1.4 billion and Bear Stearns $ 1.1 billion. But underneath the surface the picture was even worse. Each of the three underwriters of this deal would soon join the ranks of the departed, and one of the reasons was that they had disproportionately retained the bottom- dwelling sludge from their structured finance labs.

In this case, Wachovia’s retention included about $ 1 billion of the lowestrate mezzanine tranches, and the other two underwriters each had close to $ 1 billion of this sludge as well. Overall, the three underwriters had retained nearly 85 percent of the $ 3.3 billion of mezzanine debt issued to fund the Extended Stay deal; it was worth virtually nothing and had proved unsalable even after Cramer issued the “all clear.”

Moreover, when the army of nomad workers who occupied the Extended Stay rooms twenty days at a crack were demobilized by the faltering economy in 2008, revpar plummeted by 25 percent. Soon EBITDA was falling drastically below plan, even as it became evident that Blackstone had bagged Lichtenstein with tired and under-maintained hotel rooms that needed far more capital expenditure than provided for in the selling memo that had accompanied the “stapled financing.”

Indeed, with debt at nearly $ 100,000 per room an honest free market interest rate would have required more than $ 10,000 per room in debt service, or three times the available free cash flow. The Extended Stay deal was thus not even a zombie; it was dead in the water the moment Blackstone’s pitiful posse of underwriters trotted out their “stapled financing.”

By the time of the Wall Street meltdown it was all over but the shouting, and Lighthouse did file for bankruptcy in June 2009. What the latter process revealed was the true essence of bubble finance. A court-ordered appraisal showed that the hotel company assets were worth just $ 2.8 billion, or only 35 percent of the $ 8 billion purchase price.

What this finding meant was that Extended Stay America was not worth even the $ 4.1 billion of secured mortgage debt which had financed the deal. The entire $ 3.3 billion in the mezzanine tranches was purely bottled air, and yet it was the latter which had financed Blackstone’s famous $ 2.1 billion payday on the eve of its IPO.

Budget Director under President Reagan and partner at private-equity firm Blackstone Group, David Stockman skewers the Fed-induced LBO of Extended Stay America that amounted to a scam. This is the second installment of the Extended Stay debacle, from Chapter 26 of his bestseller, THE GREAT DEFORMATION: THE CORRUPTION OF CAPITALISM IN AMERICA. For the prior installment that lays out the propitious beginning of the Extended Stay debacle, click here.

BlackListedNews.com

Extended Stay And The Wall Street Meth Labs

Thursday, July 18, 2013

England heatwave warnings extended

18 July 2013
Last updated at 05:24 ET

The heatwave warning has been raised to “level three” by the Met Office for south-west England and the West Midlands.

The move brings those regions in line with the South East and London, where level three warnings remain in place.

The warning alerts healthcare services to help those in high-risk groups such as the elderly and young children.

Wednesday was the hottest day of the year, with 32.2C recorded at Hampton Water Works in south-west London.

How to stay safe in the sun

Hot weather poses a real danger to health.

The very elderly and the seriously ill are most at risk but people at the peak of physical fitness can still succumb, particularly if they are under extreme physical exertion.

The main threat is dehydration – as we overheat we can soon lose more fluid than we take in.

The body can no longer cool itself and our core temperature, which should be a stable 37C, rises.

At 40C the cells inside the body begin to break down and the body starts to malfunction.

It even stops being able to sweat, leading to more overheating.

The heart rate and breathing rate speed up and the person may fit, hallucinate or become unconscious.

Heatstroke is a medical emergency that needs urgent treatment.

Met Office weather warnings

BBC Weather Centre

Age UK: How to stay cool during a heatwave

NHS: Heatwave – be prepared

South-west England was issued a similar warning last week, alongside Yorkshire and the Humber – where temperatures have eased to allow a level two warning.

Alerts are triggered when threshold temperatures have been reached for one day and the following night, and the forecast for the next day has a greater than 90% confidence level that the day threshold temperature will again be met.

The threshold temperature for south-west England and the West Midlands is 30C, while for the South East and London it rises to 31C and 32C respectively.

Scotland and Northern Ireland are not included in the alert system.

It is the UK’s first prolonged heatwave since 2006, with six consecutive days of temperatures above 30C (86F).

Set to continue

The warm weather is set to continue into next week with temperatures in the high 20Cs at the weekend before rising to 30C and beyond next week – bringing with it an increased risk of thunderstorms.

Public Health England (PHE) officials have advised people to stay cool, drink lots of cold fluids and keep an eye on those they know to be at risk.

Dr Angie Bone, heatwave plan leader for PHE, said: “In this continued hot weather, it’s important to remember that high temperatures can be dangerous, especially for people who may be vulnerable such as older people, young children and those with serious illnesses.

“During very hot weather, pregnant women and people who have chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular, respiratory, renal conditions, diabetes or Parkinson’s disease, may experience discomfort if indoor temperatures are particularly hot and in using public transport.

“Employers should ensure indoor areas are kept cool and consider allowing these individuals to travel to or from their place of work during cooler, or less busy, times of the day. For those working or exercising outdoors, strenuous physical exertion during the hottest part of the day should be kept to a minimum.”

Warning signs

Mike Tipton, professor of human physiology at the University of Portsmouth, told BBC Radio 5live that the warning signs should be evident.

He said: “As soon as people start to feel anything like light-headedness, feel that they’re hyperventilating, if they’ve got a very rapid pulse, if they start to feel pins and needles in the fingers and around the limbs, slightly nauseous maybe, headaches, then really they need to stop any activity they’re engaged in, move to the shade, sit down or lay down, preferably get help as well.”

Jonathan McShane, from the Local Government Association, says councils are doing their bit to tend to those who may need extra assistance.

On 5live, he said: “Social workers, care workers, people who deliver ‘meals on wheels’, as part of their daily routine they’re now doing an additional check to ensure that people are coping in the heat and they’re staying hydrated and giving them some advice about how they can stay well and comfortable in the extreme weather.”

How are you coping with the heatwave? Are you caring for those in high-risk groups? Send us your comments using the form below.

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BBC News – Home

England heatwave warnings extended

Hold on Part of Wisconsin Abortion Law Extended Two More Weeks

Part of a new Wisconsin abortion law will remain on hold for another two weeks after a federal judge on Wednesday extended his stay on a requirement that any doctor performing an abortion have privileges to admit patients to a nearby hospital.

Opponents of the measure say it could shut down half the state’s abortion clinics.

U.S. District Judge William Conley extended a temporary hold he had imposed on July 8 and said he expects to rule on whether to impose a preliminary injunction during the next two weeks.

A new Wisconsin abortion law requires a doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital located within 30 miles (48 km) of his or her practice.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Affiliated Medical Services, the state’s two abortion providers, challenged the measure in court, saying it could force abortion clinics in Appleton and Milwaukee to close.

“This law will pose a significant undue burden for the women of Wisconsin,” said Carrie Flaxman, an attorney for Planned Parenthood, during the hearing.

Two other clinics, one in Madison and a second Milwaukee clinic, would not be forced to close.

State of Wisconsin lawyers argued during the hearing that the law gives women the assurance of better health care.

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker signed the measure into law July 5. The law also requires an ultrasound to be performed on a pregnant woman at least 24 hours before an abortion, a requirement that can be waived if the pregnancy is the result of sexual assault or incest.

Under the law, results of the ultrasound, including images, a description of the fetus and a visualization of the fetal heartbeat, must be offered to the patient, but she can decline to see them.

The lawsuit in federal court does not challenge the ultrasound portion of the law.

The Wisconsin law is one of the latest state restrictions on abortion, which was legalized nationally by a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Earlier this month, Texas passed a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and also would require doctors to have hospital admitting privileges. Texas Governor Rick Perry is expected to sign the provisions into law soon.

Courts have blocked hospital admitting requirements in Mississippi and Alabama, according to data published July 1 by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports abortion rights. Five other states have similar laws on the books, according to the data.

Newsmax – America

Hold on Part of Wisconsin Abortion Law Extended Two More Weeks

Monday, March 17, 2014

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Day Is Added to Deadline as Rush Hits Health Portal (December 24, 2013)

Monday, December 23, 2013

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Thursday, July 18, 2013

How to stay safe in the sun