Hasta La Gadget!

Ever heard of Kindle Unlimited? Us either, at least not until now. Originally spotted by kboards, a forum site that welcomes Kindle chatter, this previously unknown service appears to be an upcoming all-you-can-read subscription service from Amazon….

Amazon is readying a new ebook and audiobook subscription service that would offer unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of titles for a monthly fee, according to some prematurely-spotted product pages. Kindle Unlimited is expected to cost $9.99 per month, according to a now-yanked page on Amazon’s site, and in return offer titles like the full Hunger Games series, the … Continue reading

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America said Wednesday that its second-quarter earnings were hit by higher litigation expenses.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank earned $2 billion in the second quarter after payments to preferred shareholders, compared with $3.6 billion in the same period a year earlier, a decline of 43 percent. Revenue fell 4 percent to $21.9 billion from $22.9 billion.

Per share, the bank’s earnings worked out to 19 cents, compared with 32 cents a year ago.

The bank’s litigation costs of $4 billion crimped earnings by 22 cents a share.

Bank of America also said that it had reached a $650 million settlement Tuesday with American International Group Inc. to resolve all outstanding residential mortgage-backed securities litigation between the two companies.

The bank said that “substantially all” of the litigation expenses incurred in the second quarter of the year were related to existing mortgage issues that have been previously disclosed.

Like its competitors, Bank of America is still dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the subsequent collapse of the housing market. For example, the bank said in March that it will spend $9.33 billion to resolve a dispute over mortgage securities with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

However, unlike JPMorgan and Citigroup, Bank of America has yet to settle a federal investigation into its handling of risky subprime mortgages. Citigroup said on Monday that it had agreed to a $7 billion settlement with the Department of Justice, while JPMorgan reached a $13 billion settlement in November.

“We feel like we’ve gotten a large chunk of this behind us … Clearly, the DOJ is the most significant matter that’s out there remaining,” Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson said on a call with reporters.

The Wall Street Journal reported later Wednesday that Bank of America had offered to pay $13 billion in both cash and consumer relief in a meeting with the DOJ Tuesday. The DOJ, though, is asking for “billions more,” the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Jerome Dubrowski, a spokesman for Bank of America, said he couldn’t comment on the report.

In April, Bank of America was forced to shelve plans to increase its dividend and stock buyback program. The bank said the move came after it realized that it had incorrectly valued securities that it had obtained through its acquisition of Merrill Lynch in 2009. As a consequence, the lender said it needed to hold a higher level of capital.

Bank of America had intended to buy $4 billion of its own stock and raise its dividend from a penny per share to 5 cents per share. The plan had been approved by the Federal Reserve. The bank said May 27 that it had resubmitted its capital plan to the Federal Reserve.

Thompson told reporters on Wednesday that he couldn’t comment on “supervisory matters.”

Bank of America’s stock fell 37 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $15.45.

Baseball is halfway through the season and the All-Star Break is upon us. This lull in the normal game routine gives me my own hiatus to reflect upon what I love about baseball. And when I sat down to blog about why I love the game and ballparks so much, I struggled with it. How do I say what hasn’t been said before? How do I make it not sound trite and too sentimental? How do I offer a new perspective?

No immediate answers came to mind. Plenty of writers have come before me to pen authentic and thoughtful notes on the sport, some right here on HuffPost. Rather than compete, I thought I would just speak from my own heart and talk about what it means to me.

So why do I love it so much?

I love the youthful giddiness I get when I approach a ballpark. Subway stops such as Kenmore Square, 161st St, and Navy Yard peak my attention when I see them on a map. Whether you walk, bike, or drive to the game, I think the same feeling is evoked. At least for me, it’s excitement, anticipation and awe. It’s a feeling of the generations that have come before me, getting off at the same stop, sharing the love of the team with their offspring, and the circle of life continuing.

I love old ballparks like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, important reminders and identifications of our past. They connect me to a present community and shared past in a time where we are becoming increasingly disconnected in person. (A great book that talks much more eloquently and in depth about this sense of place and identity is Faithful to Fenway by Michael Ian Borer).

I love that baseball makes me slow down and grounds my frenetic life. I can lose myself in a game after a long day at work, or relax under the April sun after a brutally cold winter. Baseball gives me moments of breath-holding, edge-of-the-seat excitement, for sure. I love the anticipation of watching a double play happening, or a close play at home plate. But the game simultaneously offers me much-needed downtime between plays to connect with friends and family for a few hours.

I love listening to the game on the radio. Each weekend, I have the game on my phone while I work in my garden. Listening to a game on the radio connects me to generations before me when this was the only way to experience the game if you weren’t there in person. And each weekend, I put the phone in my pocket, and listen to the same announcer that called the games when I was a kid. The sound of his voice reminds me of lazy summer days on Cape Cod, of playing outside until nightfall, and of growing up in a New England summer. It reminds me of simpler times with less demands, when my brother and I soaked up every last minute of being outdoors in the country. It keeps me connected to my past while I work in my present.

OK, I’ll confess, if you haven’t realized by now – I’m a big Red Sox fan. I love my team and have been going to games since I was in the womb. But this is a universal baseball love story rather than a Red Sox love story. I go to Nationals games, I go to minor league games, and I visit other ballparks. (If I told you in the beginning I was a Red Sox fan and you root for another team, you may not have read all the way through. Am I right?) But I have to imagine that if you are a baseball fan, some of these truths are universal – whether you’re a kid in a field in Illinois going to your first Cubs game, a mom in LA who follows the Dodgers, or a grandfather in Brooklyn who remembers when the Dodgers were there.

I realize modern-day baseball is beset with steroid use, trades, and lucrative contracts. I see some of the ugliness and big business aspects. And I also realize I’m romanticizing the sport some here, swimming in nostalgia and rose-colored glasses. But I’m OK with that, because I love the sport and what I personally get from it. I love the history that comes with shared community, I love the stories of life in ballparks, I love the little kid who comes for the first time and is excited beyond belief to be seeing his or her heroes in person. I love that the “Star Spangled Banner” is played, and God Bless America, and peanuts and hot dogs and popcorn and Cracker Jacks. I love singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the seventh inning stretch. I love the goosebumps I get coming up the ramp at Fenway Park – EVERY TIME. I love that I can take my dog to a Nationals game and parade her around the warning track. I love the pennant races chasing magic numbers in September, and the intensity of October. I love that every stadium has their own song or tradition that is incorporated into every game, and all the fans know the routines by heart. In fact, they rely on them. It’s good to rely on something every once in a while.

I still believe baseball is good for the soul, and good for our society. It’s not perfect, but neither are we. And I still love it, warts and all. So, grab the family, friends, colleagues, or go by yourself. Get some Cracker Jacks, a hot dog and a beer. Slow down, enjoy the summer and fall in love with baseball. Play Ball.

If you don’t want Iran to have the bomb and you don’t want to bomb Iran, a diplomatic agreement is the solution. Yet some on Capitol Hill are already trying to wreck negotiations.

Right now in Vienna, U.S. negotiators and their partners from other world powers are in the delicate, late stages of negotiations with Iran. If we succeed, Iran would lock up its nuclear program and put it under constant monitoring. If talks collapse, the options are bleak, and some folks are likely to start clamoring for war.

There’s reason to be optimistic. All sides appear committed to getting an effective deal and making progress toward getting one. But some in Washington are preparing to trash the deal — even before it is finished.

Senators Robert Menendez and Lindsey Graham are moving a letter around the Senate, setting out impossible demands upon our negotiators and positioning themselves for opposing the deal. This is shortsighted and unhelpful.

People in Congress who root for the deal to fail have not thought through the alternatives: an Iranian bomb or starting a war to prevent one.

As an Iraq war veteran who served two tours, at the beginning and end, I can tell you that I understand the alternatives. They scare the living hell out of me.

The Middle East is teeming with violence, especially in Syria and Iraq. Centuries-old rivalries between Sunni and Shia continue to boil over. The last thing you want to introduce into this region is an Iran with nuclear weapons.

A nuclear Iran would trigger a new arms race in the region. Sunni Arab states, feeling threatened by the balance of power tipping towards Shia Iran, would chase their own nuclear ambitions. Israel, now surrounded by nuclear powers, would be on a permanent heightened state of alert. Caught in the middle would be Iraq — currently still fighting its civil war, but with a Shia majority, which naturally align it with Iran.

The United States would almost certainly get sucked in, by Arab states, many of which we depend on for oil. At the start, it would be for protection — defense against the new Iranian threat. But what if one side or the other fires that first shot of war, and it explodes? American forces would be caught in the middle of the start of World War III.

What about pre-emptive strikes, to disable Iran’s nuclear capability? Any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would quickly descend into a full-blown regional war. Iran would respond by attacking U.S. allies and interests in the region, and in their defense the U.S. would escalate the broadening conflict. What might have started as a “surgical airstrike” would soon require putting boots on the ground. And if you thought that Iraq and Afghanistan were hard, going to war with Iran would make the last decade of war look like a cakewalk.

So, Congress has the responsibility to do everything it can before putting American troops in harms way — as a last resort. Right now, that means letting diplomacy work and not undermining our negotiators.

Senators like Robert Menendez and Lindsey Graham played a big role in bringing Iran to the table by creating a strong sanctions regime. But now they need to work with our negotiators to ensure that the U.S. secures an effective deal. Publicly undercutting negotiators with political posturing does the exact opposite.

Washington loves to quote Ronald Reagan about nuclear deals, saying, “Trust, but verify.” Certainly, any deal that is struck with Iran will have a strict verification regime. But I would like to cite two other quotes from Reagan.

“The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence, and patience to turn that dream into a reality,” and, “I would much prefer to get 80 percent of what I want than to go off the cliff with the flag flying.”

It’s unclear if negotiators will get a deal by their deadline on Sunday or if they will need to go into extra innings with Iran. We also might not get everything we want right away. Regardless, diplomacy is our best way to prevent an Iranian bomb and avoid another war in the Middle East. Congress should do everything it can to help our diplomats succeed.