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A new eatery serving up Chicago-style hot dogs, fresh-fired steakburgers and frozen custard has opened in Round Rock.

San Antonio franchise company South Texas Custard Ltd. opened a Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers shop at 707 Round Rock Ave. The restaurant sells a mix of savory entrees, custard and custard cakes, a frozen dessert similar to ice cream.

The Round Rock store employs about 35 employees and is the Texas partners' third Austin area location. The owners James Oberg, Ron Oberg, Jeff Rochelle and George Shaw III also operate locations in Cedar Park, Pflugerville, Georgetown, Bastrop, South Padre Island, Seguin, Del Rio and Kerrville personal loans for bad credit.

Freddy's Frozen Custard LLC is based in Wichita, Kan. and was founded in 2002. The restaurant is named after World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient Freddy Simon.

The Round Rock store opens 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, except Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m.

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Bermuda Run Country Club is out from under control of a court-appointed receiver after businessman Don Angell reached an agreement with the club’s lender.

Members of the club received a letter dated July 1 notifying them of the agreement with Rhode Island-based Textron Financial, which filed suit earlier this year claiming that Angell put the club up as collateral for a more than $8 million loan that the club’s operating company, WFBRCC LLC, took out in 2004.

The letter did not outline details of the agreement.

“Unfortunately, the speed and depth of the worst recession in eighty years caught us completely off guard,” Angell’s letter said. “As a result, we had to enter into some difficult dealings with Textron Financial, our lender, including a possible foreclosure of the club low fee payday loans.”

Georgia-based Affiniti Golf Partners came in to manage the club under the court-appointed receiver and will continue to run the club. Affiniti, along with club staff, “have worked hard to right the ship and put it back on a healthy course once again,” Angell wrote.

Several of Angell’s other companies have faced financial difficulties including tax liens over the past few months. But Angell wrote that “Bermuda Run CC is one of our proudest accomplishments. We love the club, all the people involved, and cherish the memories we have created together over all these years. Its recent troubles were very painful for us.”

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California’s high-speed rail officials said Monday they will compete for a share of an additional $2.3 billion in federal funds for such train projects nationwide.

Federal Railroad Administration officials announced they will start accepting applicants to disseminate $2.1 billion in grants for high-speed intercity passenger rail projects. The agency will also make available $245 million for individual construction projects within a high-speed rail corridor.

This will be in addition to the $8 billion in federal stimulus funds that were awarded to high-speed rail projects last fall. California was able to secure $2.2 billion of that amount to help kick-start its proposed 800-mile, $45 billion statewide high-speed rail network connecting Southern California with the Bay Area and Sacramento payday loans.

“The High-Speed Rail Authority and California will compete aggressively for our share of these funds to supplement the federal stimulus funds we have already been awarded and the state funds committed to the project by the people of California," said Curt Pringle, chairman of the rail authority’s board of directors, in a statement. "We will continue to move forward with building the nation’s first high-speed rail system because we know it will create jobs, economic opportunity for Californians and improved mobility for our state.”

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A subsidiary of Astronics Corp. has been hired to design, develop and supply the electrical emergency lighting and passenger information signs for the Airbus A350 XWB program, the parent company announced Monday.

Terms of the deal between Luminescent Systems Inc., owned by East Aurora-based Astronics (NASDAQ: ATRO), and Diehl Aerospace were not disclosed.

The Airbus A350 XWB is the newest twin-engine wide-body aircraft family from Airbus. Diehl Aerospace was selected by Airbus as the prime contractor to supply the entire cabin and cargo lighting package for the new A350 XWB family of aircraft.

The system that will be installed by Luminescent will include ceiling emergency lights, emergency exit signs, seat and galley-mounted aisle floodlights, passenger information signs and exterior emergency lights.

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After a nearly 30 percent drop in January, foreclosures were back on the rise in Alabama last month.

RealtyTrac, a national tracker of foreclosures, said 2,291 properties were reported to be in some form of foreclosure in the state in February, or one foreclosure for every 942 households.

That’s a more than 27 percent increase over January and a more than 221 percent increase over the same month a year ago, said a news release.

Nationally, foreclosures decreased by more than 2 percent over the previous month, but increased more than 6 percent over February 2009, the smallest year-over-year increase since 2006.

“This leveling of the foreclosure trend is not necessarily evidence that fewer homeowners are in distress and at risk for foreclosure, but rather that foreclosure prevention programs, legislation and other processing delays are in effect capping monthly foreclosure activity – albeit at a historically high level that will likely continue for an extended period,” said James J free online credit report. Saccacio, CEO at RealtyTrac.

RealtyTrac said more than 60 percent of the national total of properties in some form of foreclosure were in six states – California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Arizona and Texas.

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Marriott International Inc. has signed a management contract with Salt River Devco, a development company run by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona, to operate a Courtyard by Marriott-branded hotel on reservation property.

It is Marriott’s first hotel on U.S. tribal land. It is located just outside of Scottsdale, Ariz.

The hotel, owned by Salt River Devco, is part of a 108-acre development it manages which currently includes six commercial buildings with plans for eight more.

“It is a great example of Marriott’s diverse ownership program, which currently has more than 500 diverse-owned hotels,” said Eric Jacobs, senior vice president of lodging development for Marriott cash advance to savings account.

The 156-room hotel is scheduled to open in 2012. Courtyard is Marriott’s (NYSE: MAR) largest brand, with 860 properties now and another 150 in development.

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Canadian media luminaries Jerry Grafstein, Raymond Heard and Beryl Wajsman announced today they are leading a consortium of local investors to acquire Montreal’s The Gazette, The Ottawa Citizen and The National Post.

The group is in the process of filing a bid to buy the three dailies Canwest LP, a division of Canwest Global Communications Corp. The partners hope to be able to begin due diligence on the operating data in the next few weeks.

The consortium partners have received strong financial commitments from unspecified sources. They said additional participants in the consortium will be announced shortly.

“Our partnership represents a cross spectrum of engaged Canadians committed to a vigorous, independent media voice for the communities that each newspaper serves. We are encouraged by the positive response we have received from investors,” the three consortium partners said. “We are firm in our view that there remains a bright future for newspapers supported by creative web platforms.”

The offer may face an uphill battle. The papers are part of a larger chain of 11 publications, which is currently operating under bankruptcy court protection from creditors. The chain is being offered for sale as an intact group, not as individual publications.

The founding family, headed by Leonard Asper, chief executive officer of Canwest Global, has indicated it wants to keep the papers together. Asper has noted in a pre-filing letter that the newspaper chain and another Canwest property, the Global television network, benefit financially from being able to sell joint advertising space to major national advertisers.

As well, the newspaper group would somehow have to improve on the offer Canwest already has on hand from its secured creditors, led by Canada’s major banks. The creditors say they will pay $950 million for the chain, the amount they are owed by Canwest LP.

But the media consortium said today it believes the newspapers would benefit from local involvement that would produce timely, informative, well-written stories and grassroots journalism reflecting the priorities of Canada’s diverse communities. Each newspaper has a loyal and interested readership, which the consortium said it is confident can be broadened and deepened.

Grafstein is a former Senator and founder of CITY-TV in Toronto and other electronic and print enterprises in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Latin America. He retired from the Senate when he turned 75 — the mandatory retirement age — on Jan. 2.

Heard, a media consultant with major corporate clients, was White House correspondent and Managing Editor of the Montreal Star, editor of the London Observer News Service, and head of Global TV News, which is also owned by Canwest.

Wajsman, is editor of Quebec’s largest English-language weekly, publisher of the bilingual journal of political commentary, The Metropolitan, and was the producer and host of a Montreal radio news magazine program.

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The 2010 census couldn’t have come at a better time for the U.S. economy.

The government will hire about 1.2 million temporary workers in the first half of the year to administer the decennial population count, possibly providing a bridge to gains in private employment later in the year.

The surge will probably dwarf any hiring by private employers early in 2010 as companies delay adding staff until they are convinced the economic recovery will be sustained. Money earned by the clipboard-toting workers going door-to-door to verify the government population survey is likely to be spent, giving the economy an extra lift.

“It’s a short-term stimulus program in which the government’s injecting money into the economy through additional paychecks,” said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, who projects that 2.5 million more Americans will be working at the end of the year. “This will support consumer income during those months.”

Payrolls unexpectedly fell 85,000 last month, a Labor Department report showed today, and revisions showed they increased by 4,000 in November, the first gain in almost two years. Service industries, which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers, subtracted 4,000 workers after adding 62,000 the previous month.

The economy will add 1.1 million jobs by the end of the year, according to the consensus estimate in a survey last month by Blue Chip Economic Indicators.

“We have the strongest increases in the second half of the year,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, referring to the firm’s forecast for hiring to grow by 800,000 this year.

Third Quarter

Economists’ payroll estimates for the year exclude the census numbers since the jobs created are temporary, with most disappearing by the end of the third quarter and the rest gone by December.

The stimulus bill President Barack Obama signed in February and additional funding by Congress provided enough money to hire 1.4 million Americans in total for the census, almost three times as many as in 2000 easy online payday loans. About 160,000 were already employed last year to do preliminary work.

The Census Bureau anticipates hiring about 181,000 workers from January through March and about 971,000 in the following three months.

First Five Months

The economy may add about 700,000 jobs in May alone, mostly because of the census, Gault said. Even Maki’s more optimistic assessment of the employment outlook means the U.S. may take years to recover the 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007.

“The bulk of these employees are from the low end of the income distribution; they are cash-constrained,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse in New York who forecasts the economy will add a little more than 1 million jobs this year. “Having a paycheck is allowing them to spend in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise.”

Hiring for the census may also help lower the unemployment rate early this year, economists said, though the influence will be less than in payrolls. For example, some of the people hired may have other part-time jobs, limiting the impact on joblessness.

By the end of the year the jobless rate will fall to 9.7 percent, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The unemployment in December held at 10 percent.

Optimistic Outlook

Bruce Kasman, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, is among those optimistic about the outlook for jobs early in the year with or without the help from the census.

“We think it’s going to ramp up pretty quickly,” he said. Kasman forecasts the economy will create more than 2 million jobs this year.

Other economists anticipate a labor market weakness will persist through the next six months, even taking into account the census hiring.

“The labor market will effectively be stalled through the first half of 2010,” said James Shugg, a senior economist at Westpac Banking Corp. in London.

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After surging 10% in October, sales of existing homes jumped again in November, growing 7.4% compared with October to an annualized rate of 6.54 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.

"This clearly is a rush of first-time buyers not wanting to miss out on the tax credit," said NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun.

November was originally going to be the last month in which sales to first-time homebuyers would qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $8,000. However, that deadline was extended through June.

In addition, the tax credit was expanded to cover people who already own a home. They can qualify for a $6,500 tax credit if purchase a new house before the end of June. That should encourage "trade-up" buyers.

The strength of sales in November surprised the industry. A panel of experts compiled by Briefing.com had forecast month-over-month sales growth of just 2.5% to 6.25 million from 6.1 million a month earlier.

The sales total was also a huge improvement over a year ago. Sales rose 45.7% over the paltry annualized rate of 4.49 million units during November 2008.

The contribution made by first-time buyers is evident in a separate survey NAR conducted of its members. They estimate that 51% of sales in November were by newcomers to the market, up a point from 50% in October. Normally, first timers account for about 40% of sales.

Also propelling sales higher were rock-bottom interest rates. The average for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan during the month was just 4.88%, down from 4.95% in October and 6.09% a year ago.

With rates that much lower, homebuyers can save more than $150 a month on a $200,000 mortgage.

The industry expects home sales to slacken December, partially because of the tax credit’s originally scheduled demise. That caused some buyers to push up their closing, stealing sales from December.

However, sales will not fall off a cliff, though, according to Walter Molony, a NAR spokesman payday loans with no faxing. "The psychology seems to be turning around," he said. "Potential buyers, who had been staying on the fence, now believe we’re at or near the market bottom."

One X-factor, however, is the vast numbers of homes that may come to market over the next few months. There is a large "shadow inventory" — homes owned by banks and mortgage companies — that have not yet been put up for sale. It could be as many as 1.7 million units, according to First American CoreLogic.

In addition, another spate of foreclosures could be hitting the market as a number of option-ARM mortgages are set to default.

All that may drive prices down, according to Shari Olefson, author of "Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream." And the impact of these renewed price declines could again alter the market psychology.

"People think that prices have bottomed," she said. "I don’t think they have. People will see price declines and that will discourage them from buying."

Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research has preached all through the bust that price declines are what will "fix" the housing crisis.

"We needed to see prices fall to make ownership competitive with renting again, and to restore the normal relationship of house prices to income," he said. "That has now happened and you’re seeing buyers come out of the woodwork as a result."

Still, they will have to come out in large numbers to offset the inventory overhang in some of the worst markets, according to Olefson. In the Florida condo market, for example, there is a 35-to-40 month supply of units at the current rates of sale, she said.

Prices still almost certainly have further to fall. 

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Colorado research biotech Array BioPharma Inc. has reached a deal with industry giant Amgen Inc. that gives $60 million to Array and separately funds research jobs at the company.

The Boulder-based company licensed continued development of an experimental Type II diabetes drug, ARRY-403, to Amgen in exchange for the $60 million up front. Amgen also agreed to pay for an undisclosed number of research jobs at Array for two years.

Array BioPharm will complete the Phase I trial it started this year on ARRY-403, testing its safety and dosing in people for the first time. Under the licensing arrangement, Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen, will conduct future testing and development of the drug.

Under the terms of the deal, Array BioPharma retains the right to co-promote the drug in the United States, if ARRY-403 makes it to market. It will also make royalties on future sales of ARRY-403 that Amgen makes, the companies announced Monday evening.

With 390 employees, Array is second in size only to Amgen among Colorado’s commercial biotech drug employers, and the largest one based in the state. Amgen employs about 900 people in Boulder County.

Array researchers struck upon developing "glucokinase activator" compounds for treating diabetes in 2005 Same day payday loans. ARRY-403, the leading drug resulting from the research, is hoped to be a once-a-day pill that helps the body modulate glucose levels in the blood and increases the production of insulin, a process that doesn’t work properly in diabetics.

"Amgen is a leading innovator of important new therapies, with a focus on the treatment of severe, chronic diseases, and we believe that this collaboration indicates the significant potential of our glucokinase activator program," said Array CEO Robert Conway in a press release.

A trio of former Amgen scientists launched Array BioPharma in 1998 after Amgen closed some of its Boulder labs there. Array started with 25 employees and grew by researching potential drug compounds — primarily potential cancer treatments — for other biotechs.

ARRY-403 is among the first generation of treatments Array started developing for itself.

The Amgen deal helps Array end the year with positive news after it laid off 40 employees in January and scaled back its research focus.

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