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Seattle, WA, United States (AHN Sports) – PBA Hall of Famers Mike Aulby and Parker Bohn III, along with PBA Tour champions Danny Wiseman and Doug Kent, participated in the 10th annual “Jeff Gordon Bowling Ball” in Indianapolis on July 28, an event that raised more than $300,000 in support of Jeff Gordon’s Children’s Foundation and Riley Hospital for Children.

The annual bowling fundraiser has generated more than $1.58 million to Riley Hospital for Children since its inception. In addition, Gordon made a pledge of $1.5 million to Riley Children’s Foundation in 2010, establishing the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation Pediatric Cancer Research Fund.

Funds from the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation are creating a $1 million endowment for research conducted in partnership between Riley Hospital and the Wells Center for Pediatric Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The remaining $500,000 is addressing immediate research needs at Riley Hospital.

BARNES TO APPEAR ON NBC’S TODAY SHOW ON FRIDAY, AUG. 19

PBA Triple Crown winner Chris Barnes will make an appearance on NBC’s The Today Show on Friday, Aug. 19, offering bowling tips to co-hosts Kathi Lee Gifford and Hoda Katb along with their mothers. Barnes also will do a few bowling stunts.

The segment will be taped at Bowlmor Lanes in Manhattan. Barnes and The Today Show ladies will be joined by three local youth bowlers who will also show off their skills. The Gifford-Hatb segment airs in the fourth hour of The Today Show.

PBA SENIOR TOUR, REGIONAL COVERAGE RETURNS TO XTRA FRAME

PBA.com’s exclusive online coverage of the PBA Senior Tour and Regional action continues with Xtra Frame airing the final rounds of the concluding events on the 2011 PBA Senior Tour schedule. And while the Xtra Frame staff is in the neighborhood, pba.com’s subscription-based video streaming service will also include

coverage of the finals of two PBA Regional events.

The upcoming Xtra Frame schedule includes:

Sunday, Aug. 14 – PBA Central Region Elite Motors/Backhaul Direct Open, Crest Lanes, Marion, Ind.

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 15-16 – PBA Senior Decatur Open, Spare Time Lanes, Decatur, Ill.

Sunday, Aug. 21 – PBA Central Region Lefeld Implement Classic, Pla-Mor Lanes, Coldwater, Ohio.

Wednesday-Thursday, Aug. 24-25 – PBA Senior Jackson Open, Airport Lanes, Jackson, Mich.

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 29-30 – PBA Senior Dayton Classic, Capri Lanes, Kettering, Ohio.

To subscribe to Xtra Frame, visit pba.com and click on the Xtra Frame logo.

PBA Regional Roundup:

INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS GOMEZ, WILLIAMS AMONG PBA REGIONAL WINNERS

Colombian native Andres Gomez of Sunrise, Fla., defeated Jesse Rodriguez of Davie, Fla., 235-174, to win his first PBA title in the PBA South Region’s Jimmy Keeth Memorial Open at Jupiter Lanes on Sunday. Along with his title, Gomez earned $2,500.

Also on Sunday, another international player won his first PBA title. In the West Region, Stuart Williams of England posted a 4-4 match play record and a 16-game total of 3,844 pins to win the PBA West Region Virgin River Lanes Championship.

Williams, who earned $1,300, defeated Andre Eubanks of Los Angeles, Calif., by 158 pins for his first PBA Regional title. With his win, Williams became eligible to enter the 2012 PBA Tournament of Champions which will be held in April at Red Rock Lanes in Las Vegas. Eubanks had a 5-3 match play record and 3,686 pins for 16 games including match play bonus pins.

In the companion Virgin River Senior Open, Tony Rodriquez Jr. of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., went 5-3 and knocked down 3,948 total pins for 16 games to top Marv Sargent of Temecula, Calif., for his first Senior Regional title and $1,200. Rodriguez also became eligible to enter the Tournament of Champions as a PBA title winner. Sargent had 3,909 pins, 39 behind Rodriquez.

Bill O’Neill of Southampton, Pa., defeated Travis Celmer of Wernersville, Pa., 240-192, to win the PBA East Region Storm Products/Bowlers Supply Open at Colony Park Lanes North Sunday for a $2,800 prize and his seventh career PBA Regional title.

In Arlington Heights, Ill., Harry Sullins of Chesterfield Township, Mich., closed with a string of five strikes, overcoming a 29-pin seventh-frame deficit to upset top qualifier Kerry Painter of Henderson, Nev., 213-210, in the title game of the PBA Midwest/Central Senior Beverly Lanes Open presented by Allstate Insurance on

Sunday. It was Sullins’ third PBA Senior Regional title of the season and the 18th overall regional title of his career.

In Lubbock, Texas, West Texas A&M collegiate player Taylor Coggins of Burleson, Texas, won nine of his 12 matches to pull away from the rest of the finalists and win the inaugural PBA Southwest Region Lubbock Open at South Plains Lanes Sunday. Coggins earned $2,200, topping Dino Castillo of Carrollton, Texas, by 229 pins for the win. But he doesn’t get credit for a PBA title because he’s a non-member.

Next weekend’s round of PBA Regional events includes: the PBA East Region Iroquois Lanes Senior Open in Canajorharie, N.Y.; the Central Region Elite Motors/Backhaul Direct Open at Crest Lanes in Marion, Ind.; the Midwest Region St. Charles Lanes Non-Champions Challenge in St. Charles, Mo.; the Southwest Region Plano Super Bowl Open in Plano, Texas, and the PBA Northwest/West Region Ten Down Lanes Open

presented by West Bank at Roseburg, Ore.

Also in the Central Region, the Modern Woodmen of America Senior Championship at Al-Mar Lanes in Bowling Green, Ohio, will be held Tuesday-Friday, Aug. 16-19, sandwiched between the PBA Senior Decatur (Ill.) Open and the PBA Senior Jackson (Mich.) Open.

For complete Regional tournament schedules and entry information, visit pba.com and click on “Regional Tour” under the “Schedules” drop-down tab.

QUICK NOTES:

Lumber Liquidators PBA Tour star Tommy Jones and partner Shannon Pluhowsky won their fourth title in the 12th annual Luci Bonneau Striking Against Breast Cancer Memorial Mixed Doubles Tournament in Houston, Texas, on July 24. Jones and Pluhowsky posted a combined 16-game total of 3,490 pins to top Andres Gomez and Clara Guerrero by 59 pins. Emily Maier and two-time PBA Tour titlist Mike Fagan finished third in a sold-out field of 84 teams that featured more than a dozen Lumber Liquidators PBA

Tour title winners.

Journeyman PBA Senior Tour competitor Ron Garr of Ridgedale, Mo., may be done bowling for the season. The 64-year-old right-hander made it to Round 8 in the losers’ bracket in the USBC Senior Masters before being eliminated and tying for fifth place, but he was experiencing some hip pain. He decided to work it out by

riding a bike, but reportedly hit a rut and took a nasty spill, resulting in a fractured left collarbone in addition to assorted abrasions.

PBA Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli won a pair of gold medals for Venezuela in the men’s singles and men’s all-events categories in the 44th Lee Evans Tournament of the Americas at Sawgrass Lanes in Tamarac, Fla. Monacelli won the singles crown with a 12-game total of 2,657 pins and led in all-events with a 36-game total of 7,879 pins, a 218.86 average. The event, which drew competitors from 15 American Zone countries, ended on Aug. 6.

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Brussels, Belgium (AHN) – Solving the Greek sovereign debt crisis is essential or the other member states of the Eurozone will feel the negative consequences, warned the European Commission president.

Eurozone leaders are meeting in Brussels, Belgium this week to discuss the Greek crisis.

Despite the urgency of the matter, Eurozone leaders remain divided on how to address the problem.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her nation wants private investors to help with any package of aid by rolling over loans they have already made to Greece, thereby extending the due dates for repayment.

But the European Central Bank objects to this plan and says international credit agencies would view that move as a default by Greece and it would undermine investor confidence not just in Greek debt but in the value of the euro as well.

With such a level of disagreement, Merkel has said it is not likely that any concrete plan will emerge from this meeting.

Observers have said that the basic problem stems from merging the currencies of 17 nations without first merging agreeing on similar fiscal policies.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN Sports) – The San Francisco Giants feasted on Detroit pitching Saturday night in cruising past the Tigers.

Home run power, including a grand slam from Miguel Tejada, ignited the Giants to a 15-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.

The 15 runs marked a season high for the Giants, who have not suffered a loss this season of a game in which they had a lead of three runs or more.

The Giants were leading 6-0 in the third inning when the game was delayed because of a heavy thunderstorm. The game was delayed 2 hours and 45 minutes before action resumed.

“We wanted to keep going,” San Francisco coach Bruce Bochy said, noting there was some thought on playing a doubleheader Sunday. “We had the 6-0 lead and the last thing we wanted was a doubleheader tomorrow. The big thing was we were able to finish the game.”

Pablo Sandoval extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a two-run homer in the first inning, his seventh of the season, for a 2-0 lead. Late in the evening, Brandon Crawford had a three-run homer, his second of the season, for a 5-0 advantage.

Tiger starter Max Scherzer gave up back-to-back doubles in the third inning for San Francisco’s sixth run before the rains came. Scherzer, 9-4, took the loss.

Brayan Villarreal took over for Scherzer when the game resumed and gave up Tejada’s third home run of the season and his 12th career grand slam.

“I wasn’t trying to hit a home run,” Tejada said. “I was trying to hit the ball in the air. We waited for a long time to get back into the game. We are professionals. It was like a new game.”

Aubrey Huff added a two-run single for the Giants in the top of the fifth for a 12-0 lead.

In the sixth, Eli Whiteside doubled home two runs while Andres Torres added an RBI groundout for a 15-0 lead.

“I give my hitters credit,” Bochy said. “They had some good at bats out there.”

Barry Zito pitched six shutout innings for the Giants to improve his record to 2-1.

“What a job he did against a tough lineup,” Bochy said “To keep his focus the way he did, he did an amazing job using all of his pitches.”"

“He’s going to outsmart you,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said. “He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t have the power arm he once had but he still knows exactly what he’s doing. He’ll try to get you out of the strike zone, he’s going to change speeds, he’s going to cut the ball and he’s going to sink it.”

“He’s smart. He’s one of those guys over the years who has adjusted from power stuff to the ability of knowing how to use it and when to use it.”

Jhonny Peralta broke the shutout with his 14th home run of the season in the bottom of the seventh off Giant reliever Guillermo Mota. Brennan Boesch followed with his 11th homer of the year.

San Francisco, leading the National League West, is 48-36 and has won nine of its last 11. Detroit fell to 44-40.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – More Americans continue to save in banks rather than borrow money from financial institutions. According to latest data from the Federal Reserve, savings in U.S. banks hit a record $1.45 trillion in May.

The growing savings has been observed since the global financial crisis in 2008.

A similar trend was observed in Japan, where the gap between savings and borrowing is at an all-time high.

Japanese banks use the money to purchase bonds to help keep yields the lowest in the world even if Tokyo has more outstanding debts than the U.S. and a lower credit rating.

Before 2008, U.S. deposits exceeded loans at an average of $100 billion.

Because of the worst recession experienced in the U.S. since the 1930s, consumers trimmed household debt to $13.3 trillion from the 2008 peak of $13.9 trillion. The reduction resulted in savings going up 4.9 percent of income from 1.7 percent in 2007.

For the same period, banks reduced lending amid over $2 trillion in losses and writedowns. Rather than grant more loans, American financial institutions instead bought Treasuries and government-related debt, which boosted their holding of such instruments to $1.68 trillion from $1.08 trillion in early 2008.

Economists forecast it would take the U.S. and Japanese economies at least a decade to extricate themselves from the mess of being a debt-ridden society.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Citigroup admitted on Thursday that its security was breached by cyber thieves who gained access to thousands of data of the bank’s North America credit card customers.

The bank disclosed that the hacking incident was discovered after routine monitoring.

Citigroup said it is contacting clients whose information such as names, credit card numbers, residence and email addresses were exposed. The number of affected customers is about 210,000 or 1 percent of the bank’s 21 million credit card clients in North America.

The bank said other vital data such as Social Security number, date of birth, card expiration date and card security code were not accessed by the hackers.

It declined to provide more details on the incident, but said the company has put in place enhanced procedures to prevent a repeat of the hacking incident.

Citigroup warned the affected card holders to be on the lookout for scams, phishing and phone calls that would claim to come from Citibank and their subsidiaries.

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Per-pupil money schools receive will be cut by nearly $8 million, and direct funding to popular programs such as learning centers and adult education will be eliminated as part of the state Department of Education’s plan to tackle a $32.8 million budget reduction over the next two fiscal years.

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Commentary: Republicans swept the last election promising fiscal conservatism. YNNs Harvey Kronberg looks at the 82nd Legislature and questions whether they kept their promise.

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Former Tory backers voice concern over government’s economic policy as critics say chancellor needs plan B

Some of Britain’s leading economists are warning the chancellor, George Osborne, that the economy is too fragile to withstand his drastic spending cuts and that he must draw up a plan B.

Experts, including two former Whitehall advisers and two signatories of last year’s high-profile letter backing the Tories’ cuts, have told the Observer that they have profound concerns about the direction of Treasury policy.

Since the chancellor laid out his plans to balance the books by the end of the parliament in his “emergency budget” a year ago, the outlook has deteriorated markedly. Growth has gone flat over the past six months and a slew of dismal data has raised fears that the UK could be sliding towards a double-dip recession, as the US recovery wanes and the Greek debt crisis rattles the eurozone.

Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office, advising the prime minister, said: “You do not gain credibility by sticking to a strategy that isn’t working.”

He said that the recent slowdown in growth was partly the result of factors outside the government’s control, but insisted: “It isn’t just about the international environment, it’s because of the strategy the government has followed.”

Another former Whitehall insider, Vicky Pryce, the head of the government’s economic service before becoming a director at FTI Consulting, said that ministers would be advised to begin preparing the ground for a U-turn: “It’s a very risky situation, and I think that at some stage they’ll panic.”

Professor John Muellbauer of Oxford University, an expert on the housing market who signed the letter to the Sunday Times last year supporting the Conservatives’ approach, said: “Things are going badly. I had hoped that the focus in the budget would be on improving growth in the places where there are growth prospects, and also maintaining infrastructure investment, and that they would tackle failures of planning.”

Tim Besley, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member who orchestrated the letter, said: “Everybody has been disappointed with growth.” He still believes that the chancellor must stick to his guns, but complained that the Treasury had failed to articulate where growth would come from in the months ahead. “The disappointing growth has almost nothing to do with the fiscal plans of the government – I’m coming to the view that it’s just a long, slow, hard slog – but what I would like to see from the government is a much more clearly defined growth strategy.” Danny Blanchflower, another former MPC member, said: “Economic policy is in disarray.”

The increasingly bleak prospects for recovery have also prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth. The signatories – including Sir Tony Atkinson and David Marquand of Oxford University, Marcus Miller of Warwick and Richard Grayson of Goldsmiths in London, a former Liberal Democrat policy director – say that if Osborne keeps to his policy, there will be “a lot more pain and a lot less gain”. They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, “these are the foundations of a real alternative”.

A Treasury spokesman said: “We haven’t seen anything that makes us question what we are doing.” The political argument over who can be trusted with the economy has intensified in recent days. Osborne’s predecessor, Alistair Darling, accused him on Radio 4′s Today programme of being “mendacious” in insisting that the government had to slash spending or risk a Greek-style meltdown.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: “The disappointing figures we’ve had, particularly on manufacturing, seem to be further evidence that the economic recovery is stalling. We’re now set for slower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment than was forecast a year ago. And the result is that the government is now set to borrow £46bn more than they had planned.”

Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, writing on the Observer’s Comment is Free website , says that Labour needs a credible economic and fiscal strategy of its own. He concedes that the party did not spend “every pound wisely”, but insists that the deficit was caused by the global banking crisis, rather than spending. Economic policy George Osborne Public finance Banking Conservatives Ed Balls Heather Stewart Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration has found an unexpected ally in a ratings agency in the White House’s battle with Republican legislators over spending cuts and hiking the federal debt limit. On Thursday, Moody’s warned that it may downgrade Washington’s credit rating if the U.S. debt ceiling is not hiked soon.

Moody’s said that the U.S. credit rating could downgraded because of a very small, but increasing risk of a short-lived default, which would likely translate into higher interest rates at a time when the country’s recovery is again on the slow lane.

The ratings agency anticipated there would be a political battle between the Obama administration and Republican legislators before the debt ceiling would be lifted, but Moody’s said that it failed to consider the worsening conflicting positions between the two parties. Washington wanted to raise the debt limit to $16.7 trillion from the current $14.3 trillion, but with no major spending cuts.

Moody’s warning came on the heels of a lower outlook by Standard & Poor’s of the AAA U.S. debt rating to negative from stable because of the political wrangling.

The House voted on Tuesday not to hike the federal debt limit without major spending cuts. At the Wednesday White House meeting of Republican legislators with U.S. President Barack Obama, the legislators asked the administration for a detailed plan on budget cuts to solve the impasse.

House Speaker John Boehner justified the lower house’s refusal to give in to Obama’s request because raising the debt limit beyond spending cuts would cost jobs for Americans. Obama, however, warned that failure to hike the debt limit soon would lead to dire consequences for the fragile, but recovering U.S. economy.

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BNP Paribas cut its target price on Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India and said it expects steelmakers’ margins to come under pressure in the first half of fiscal 2012.

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