Moscow, Russian Federation (AHN) – Strong inflationary pressure that threatened to derail Russia’s feeble economic recovery prompted the central bank to raise its key interest rate by 0.25 basis points to 8.25 percent.

The Russian Central Bank announced the increase in its refinancing rate on Friday and said it would take effect on Tuesday.

It marked the second time since February that the bank has raised its rate, before that the bank had not raised its main interest rate in two years.

Bank officials said their focus was to combat inflation. The inflation rate reached 9.6 percent on April 25.

In addition, the value of the ruble has risen against the dollar. The ruble is at its highest rate in currency trading against the dollar since December.

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ContributorNetwork – COMMENTARY | Earlier this week, Sony announced publicly that portions of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity service account databases were illegally accessed by hackers and would be down for servicing. While Sony acknowledged in the company’s online blog and in account holder notifications that encrypted credit card information was not believed to have been placed at risk, the personal information of its 75 million plus users was compromised. What does this mean for affected PlayStation and Qriocity account holders – and what lessons should other online account holders learn from the Sony security breach?

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Systemic reform is necessary to satisfy the growing needs of members….[ Read Article ]

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The House oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee is investigating the discussions made by Treasury officials with Standard & Poor’s prior to the rating agency’s downgrade of the U.S. debt to negative last week.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, chairman of the subcommittee, said the officials may have exerted too much pressure on S&P. He sought documents regarding the meetings.

Neugebauer pointed out in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that while it is common for companies and governments to push back when they don’t agree with a rating agency’s decision, there is a question of propriety since government has regulatory and oversight functions over the rating agencies also.

S&P, before downgrading the U.S. rating, informed Washington that the country risks losing its AAA credit rating unless policy makers agree on a deficit and debt reduction plan by 2013.

It was the first time for the U.S. credit outlook to be questioned since 1995 and 1996. At that time there was a disagreement between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, which led to government shutdowns. Fitch placed the U.S. debt rating on negative watch from November 1995 to spring 1996, while Moody’s placed some U.S. government bonds on review for a possible downgrade in January 1996.

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WASHINGTON (4/27/11–FILED at 1:01 p.m. ET)–Citing that the economic recovery is moving along “at a moderate pace,” the Federal Reserve’s policymaking group–the Federal Open Market Committee–today announced it would hold its key interest rate at the 0% to 0.25% range and keep its $600 billion bond-buying program on schedule.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Federal Reserve’s policy panel decided Wednesday to keep buying $600 billion in long-term U.S. bonds until June as planned, citing a moderate economic recovery and inflation as reasons to continue the program.

The Federal Open Market Committee was unanimous for the third consecutive time in letting the program expire during a meeting in Washington.

The bond-buying scheme set in November is the second round of quantitative easing designed to keep short-term interest rates near zero and encourage businesses to loan. The economic stimulus was the government’s response to the financial crisis that hit the country in 2008.

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Today marks the sixth day of the Playstation Network (PSN) outage and Sony is still mum about when the online gaming network will go live again, which could spark an exodus of gamers and developers to other online networks like Microsoft’s Xbox Live.

Sony said the network would be down indefinitely as it rebuilt it to make it more secure after an external attack forced the company to bring its online network down. The downtime has hurt developers, who can’t release new games or content for existing games, and gamers that cannot access new content or online components of their games.

To make partial amends, the company extended the online beta for its next blockbuster title inFamous 2 – a sandbox-style game about a guy with superpowers. It’s a little token of appreciation for avid PSN users, but it likely won’t be enough to sate those who want to play games like the critically acclaimed Portal 2.

The latest word about the PSN’s downtime came yesterday morning In a blog post by Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold. “I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online,” wrote Seybold. “Unfortunately, I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time. As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly. We’ll keep you updated with information as it becomes available. We once again thank you for your patience.”

One theory is that a custom version of the Playstation 3′s firmware gave some console owners access to a developer’s network. That meant the console owners were able to put in a fake credit card number and download any of the content available on the PSN. The theory came from a moderator of a Playstation fan site who posted on news aggregator Reddit. Sony has yet to respond to VentureBeat’s inquiries about the validity of the claims.

The PSN is Sony’s attempt to engage its video-game console and PlayStation Portable audience in a larger online entertainment network that includes online games, movies and TV shows. It’s a strategic asset for the console maker as more of the-video game audience moves into the online world and it competes directly with Xbox Live.

There are 948 games now available in the PlayStation Network store, as well as 4,000 pieces of add-on content for games. There are also 31,000 movies and TV shows available for download, not counting the content available on Netflix and Hulu.

Tags: Playstation 3, PlayStation Network, playstation network down, Playstation Portable, PSN, PSN down, sony PSN, xbox, xbox 360, Xbox Live

Companies: Microsoft, Sony

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Boulder, CO, United States (AHN) – Boulder police arrested on Tuesday Earl Albert Moore, the suspect in the failed bombing attempt of Southwest Plaza mall in Littleton on April 20, and turned him over to the Denver FBI.

Moore was arrested around 7:30 a.m. at the King Soopers store at Table Mesa Drive and Broadway Street, according to Boulder police spokeswoman Kim Kobel.

Moore’s arrest came six days after the FBI Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force launched a manhunt for him after he allegedly left a crude pipe bomb in a stairwell of the mall on the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. The discovery of the bomb, which did not go off, triggered a mass evacuation in the community.

Moore was on parole for robbing a West Virginia bank of $2,546 in 2005 on the day he attempted to bomb the mall. He also served six months in state prison for a felony burglary charge in Arapahoe County in 2004.

A surveillance camera at the mall showed a man believed to be Moore passing a hallway used by employees. A fire occurred at the same hallway later and the crude pipe bomb was discovered.

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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN Entertainment) – Flav’s Fried Chicken, the fried chicken restaurant from reality star and Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav, has closed its doors after just four months in operation.

Flav’s Fried Chicken, which was originally planned as a chain, opened January in Clinton, Iowa with partner and restaurant manager Nick Cimino and closed on Sunday. But Flav told TMZ he cut ties with Cimino because he was disgusted with how he was running the restaurant.

“Let me be straight up with you, I went up inside there on April 2nd and I found potato salad that expired on February 28,” the rapper told TMZ. “And it’s then when I realized I can’t do business with this man and I really hope no one ate those potatoes.”

The restaurant also struggled with bounced paychecks to its employees. “There’s a lot of employees that weren’t getting paid,” Flav told TV station WQAD.

Cimono, in turn, called Flav a “fraud” who wanted to get rich on his ideas and that the payroll issue was because of a “credit card glitch.”

His troubles with Flav’s Fried Chicken aren’t deterring Flav from opening another restaurant. He’s set to open a House of Flavor restaurant in Las Vegas.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – With personal debt continuing to rise Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to cover expenses. A new study released by Bankrate, Inc. shows that that 19% of Americans close to 1 in 5 have admitted to tapping into retirement funds over the past 12 months to cover emergencies.

The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International also found that one in three Americans say their overall financial situation is worse than it was a year ago.

Additionally feelings of financial security among Americans, as measured by the Financial Security Index, dropped to a new low of 93.5, down from 97.0 in March and falls from December’s low of 94.6.

The poll also found that seven percent of Americans don’t have any retirement savings.

“Raiding the retirement account prematurely depletes the nest egg, subjects the individual to taxes and penalties, and deals a permanent setback to retirement security because you can never go back and make up for those early withdrawals,” said Greg McBride, CFA, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.

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