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Paducah, KY, United States (AHN) – Dippin’ Dots, the futuristic ice cream company, signed on the dotted line Friday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Paducah, KY.

The manufacturer of the colorful ice cream beads, frozen using liquid nitrogen, owes $12 million, the majority of it to Regions Financial Corp., which moved to foreclose on the loan this week.

Dippin’ Dot employees 170 workers, has about 140 Dippin’ Dots retail locations, mostly owned by franchisees, and agreements with 9,952 small vendors who sells the frozen treat the company calls “the ice cream of the future,” at fairs, festivals, carnivals and sporting events.

The meltdown came at the near end of an expensive and lengthy legal battle that the company lost, over whether founder Curt Jones, a microbiologist who started the company in 1988, properly filed the patents that protected its special freezing process.

The company said sales are slowing recovering. As of Thursday, it reported having $27.7 million in revenue, better than the $26.7 million reported in 2010.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Thursday at a detailed press conference defended his administration’s decision to give a financial injection to solar energy company Solyndra which is now under investigations after going bankrupt.

Answering a question on Solyndra fiasco, Obama said, “There were going to be some companies that did not work out; Solyndra was one of them.,” arguing that, “the process by which the decision was made was on the merits. It was straightforward. And of course there were going to be debates internally when you’re dealing with something as complicated as this.”

Obama further said, “I have confidence that the decisions were made based on what would be good for the American economy and the American people and putting people back to work.”

Citing “a loan guarantee program that predates me that historically has had support from Democrats and Republicans as well,” as the basis for the decision, Obama said, “the loan guarantee program is designed to meet a particular need in the marketplace, which is — a lot of these small startups, they can get angel investors, they can get several million dollars to get a company going, but it’s very hard for them to then scale up, particularly if these are new cutting-edge technologies.”

Obama blamed China for “heavily subsidizing all these industries,” adding, “We’re going to have to keep on pushing hard to make sure that manufacturing is located here, new businesses are located here, and new technologies are developed here.”

“And there are going to be times where it doesn’t work out, but I’m not going to cave to the competition when they are heavily subsidizing all these industries,” said the president.

Further prodding by the journalists about the warnings his administration received, Obama said, “And all I can say is that the Department of Energy made these decisions based on their best judgment about what would make sense.”

On the reports that the $38 billion loan guarantee program promise to create 65,000 jobs actually produced 3,500, Obama said, “Keep in mind that clean energy companies are competing against traditional energy companies.”

Citing the burgeoning populations of China and India, Obama argued, “We know that demand is going to keep on increasing, so that if we don’t prepare now, if we don’t invest now, if we don’t get on top of technologies now, we’re going to be facing 20 years from now, China and India having a billion new drivers on the road, the trend lines in terms of oil prices, coal, et. cetera, going up, the impact on the planet increasing.”

“And we’re not just going to be able to start when all heck is breaking loose and say, ‘Boy, we better find some new energy sources,” said Obama.

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NYC, NY, United States (AHN) – In a week that was volatile and turbulent for equities, mortgage rates appeared to be the one dull spot.

According to mortgage giant Freddie Mac, mortgage rates were largely unchanged over the past week.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 4.09 percent for the week ending Thursday, unchanged from the prior week, and down 4.37 percent from a year earlier

Rates on 15-year fixed rate mortgages averaged 3.29 percent, down 3.82 percent from last year.

Global markets plunged during the week and U.S. equities also tumbled. In early afternoon trading on Friday, markets were choppy off about 22 points.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The chance the Greece will default on its debts within the next five years has soared to 98 percent as Prime Minister George Papandreou failed to reassure the world that his country can survive the euro-region debt crisis.

Fears of a Greek default sent stock markets tumbling all across the globe. Worries have mounted that Greece’s trouble may be contagious and that other European countries are poised for a similar fate. Eyes are carefully focused on Italy and Portugal for any signs of imminent financial dangers.

Greece’s government expects the country’s economy to shrink more than 5 percent in 2011, more than the 3.8 percent previously predicted by the European Commission.

The risk of contagion beyond Greece pushed credit default swaps on Portugal, Italy and France to records. The euro fell to its lowest point against the Japanese yen since 2001. The U.S. dollar strengthened, but American equities fell in sympathy.

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Washingtong, DC, United States (AHN) – Bank-owned house sales remained high during the second quarter of the year with homes in some stage of the foreclosure process, including short sales, rising to 31 percent of sales compared to 24 percent a year earlier.

However, that number was down from the 36 percent share during the first quarter of this year, according to market research by the online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac.

The average sales price of homes in foreclosure or bank-owned was $164,217, which was 32 percent lower than that of homes not in foreclosure. That figure is down by slightly less than 1 percent from the first quarter but a decrease of nearly 5 percent compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, put the situation into perspective.

“With average prices on distressed real estate trending down and average discounts trending up, this report is clearly good news for well-positioned buyers and investors looking for bargain real estate that will build them wealth in the long term and often cash flow as rental real estate in the short term,” Saccacio said in a statement. “Maybe less evident, however, is the good news in this report for distressed homeowners looking to sell, and even lenders saddled with large portfolios of delinquent loans.”

“The jump in pre-foreclosure sales volume coupled with bigger discounts on pre-foreclosures and a shorter average time to sell pre-foreclosures all point to a housing market that is starting to focus on more efficiently clearing distressed inventory through more streamlined short sales — at least in some areas.”

“This gives distressed homeowners who do not qualify for loan modification or refinancing — or who are not interested in those options and want to sell — a better chance of completing a short sale to avoid foreclosure. Streamlined short sales also give lenders the opportunity to more pre-emptively purge non-performing loans from their portfolios and avoid the long, costly and increasingly messy process of foreclosure and the subsequent sale of an REO — which may end up selling for a lower price than it would have as a pre-foreclosure short sale and in the meantime further stresses already overloaded REO departments,” Saccacio said.

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Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – Sony Corporation has temporarily suspended on Wednesday its webpages in Canada, Thailand, Indonesia and Greece following another unauthorized intrusion into its portal.

The fresh hacking involved the theft of personal data of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications in Canada. The hackers stole 2,000 names, phone numbers and email addresses, but failed to get any credit card details.

They also altered a Sony webpage in Thailand to make it easier to send phishing email and stole web codes from Sony’s music unit’s portal in Indonesia. The Greek intrusion affected about 8,500 customers’ information.

Sony said the hacked websites were externally hosted by third parties and not linked to its main network.

The fresh attack followed last month’s hits on Sony’s network, which involved the data of over 100 million customers. Besides crippling Sony’s PlayStation Network, last month’s cyber attack cost the Japanese firm, which expects a third year of loss, $171 million (JPY 4 billion).

The intrusions also places doubt on Sony’s online security systems. Following the fresh round of hacking incident, Sony’s shares fell 1.5 percent on Wednesday at the Tokyo trading floor.

Sony said it is investigating if the fresh attacks on its webpages are linked to last month’s hacking into the company’s PlayStation Network. The company said it has so far found no evidence connecting the two incidents.

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By Amanda Iacone Virginia Statehouse News RICHMOND — Virginia has spent millions encouraging businesses to add jobs or relocate to the state’s Southside region during the past two years, but the region continues to lag behind the rest of the state in jobs. In March, the region — the southern end of Virginia’s Piedmont area — had a [...]

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Bad news isn’t new. It’s been around just as long as people have. A lot of it has to do with that famous church word that preachers and parishioners throw around a lot, but…

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The Labor Department reported that applications in the U.S. for unemployment compensation fell by 44,000 to 434,000. Economists had expected applications to decline to a seasonally adjusted 428,000 from an upwardly revised 478,000 in the prior week.The four-week average of new claims rose by 4,500 to 436,750, which is the highest level since November.The number [...]

This article ( Labor Department Reported Jobless Claims Fell 44,000 to 434, ) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News . Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.

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Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines (AHN) – Various Philippine groups criticized the measly $0.51 (PHP 22) daily minimum wage increase for Metro Manila workers approved by the wage board of the Department of Labor and Employment’s National Capital Region on Monday.

The hike was actually incorporated into the cost of living allowance of minimum wage earners, which slightly increased their daily compensation to $9.94 (PHP 426). However, the hike was paltry compared to the $1.75 (PHP 75) increase sought by trade unions.

Among the critics of the salary increase was Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who said over a radio interview that the non-stop rise in gasoline, food and other basic commodity prices will eat up the small wage hike granted NCR workers.

Trade union officials said the hike was short of the promise of good news for Metro Manila minimum wage earners President Benigno Aquino III made before Labor Day. They hit the Aquino administration for being fast in approving hikes in transport fares, but too slow in alleviating the tight economic spot many Filipinos grapple with.

The wage increase, which will take effect by the end of May, was also hit by legislators who described the increase a “too little, too late.”

Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello said the COLA adjustment is mere loose change compared to the escalating prices of goods and services.

Because of the widespread disenchantment by workers over the measly wage hike – which was defended by employers’ group as the only amount they could yield to without resulting in businesses closing – Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casino pushed for approval of a bill that proposes a $2.91 (PHP 125) across-the-board legislated daily salary increase for all Filipino workers.

Casino pointed to the 10.19 percent fuel price inflation, 7.28 percent transport fare increase and 4.03 percent food price hike as the justifications for the proposed across-the-board pay adjustment.

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